


Otherwise

by TheSigyn



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: F/F, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-22
Updated: 2016-11-22
Packaged: 2018-09-01 12:53:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 40
Words: 167,146
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8625163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSigyn/pseuds/TheSigyn
Summary: The Slayer Buffy Summers drowned at the hellmouth two years ago. The vampire Spike was dusted in Prague. So what are they both doing here?Written for the Elysian Fields 'Artistic Anniversary Challenge'. Banners and challenge by Javajunkie247





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> THE CONTENT WARNINGS ABOVE ARE ACCURATE. THIS STORY INVOLVES DARK ELEMENTS
> 
> After at least one reader was startled by dark references in this story, I wanted to reiterate that. It is truly not my goal to traumatize anyone.
> 
> Approximately 160,000 words, complete at 40 chapters.
> 
> Stunning, nevercouldhavedonethiswithoutyou betawork by Zabjade and bewildered. THANK YOU BOTH SO MUCH!

 

 

   The powerful magics swirled around Willow as she activated stage two of the spell. She was having serious trouble focusing, though. Faith, as always, was driving the burgeoning witch batty.

   “I’m telling you, you got a serious ego flatline goin’, man,” Faith was saying. “You let someone pussywhip you like that, you gotta at least get the whip going on the pussy, you know what I’m saying? I know your girl is hot and all that, but even if she thinks she’s all that, she’s not all that, got that?”

   “Um... uh, yeah,” Xander said. “I, uh... I really have to, uh...”

   Faith always got Xander flustered. She hadn’t used to, not until she’d started changing clothes right there in front of them. It was ooky and wrong, how she would just whip off her shirt, particularly whenever Xander was in the room. He always turned his head away — he had Cordelia. It was important not to piss off Cordelia — but Faith... hadn’t exactly _set her cap_ for Xander. It was clearly nothing romantic. But she made no bones about liking sex, and she was very vocal about how hot Xander would be if he took off those clown clothes he liked to wear. And okay, she had a point, but Xander wasn’t into her like that, and she shouldn’t tease him with her… her disturbing nakedness.

   “Concentrate, Willow,” Ms. Calendar said.

   Willow yanked her eyes back to the symbols in the circle and tried to read them, despite the noises from the other side of the library, as Xander tried to extricate himself from Faith and settle in to the ritual. They’d needed three for the ritual to work. Willow, as the most powerful in magic, was going to take the role of Spirit, Giles was Mind, and after some debate about using Angel or Ms. Calendar, they’d eventually settled on Xander as Heart. Faith was Hand, but since she was the nexus of the power, she didn’t actually have to be involved in the ritual itself. _Not that she could possibly have sat still long enough to do it,_ Willow thought sourly.

   Faith drove Willow up the wall. It was bad enough that she was supposed to just cough and move on when her slayer friends were killed, but to move on to _Faith!_ Kendra had been... okay. She wasn’t best-friend okay, but she had been clever and they had been able to at least do researchy things together. She had a bit of a one-track mind, and could never get into Bollywood Movie nights with Xander, for example, and Willow had never once seen Kendra at the Bronze (before it closed down) or any school functions.

   But Faith... Faith never did school, acting like it was somehow beneath her or something. And she flat out laughed at the idea of keeping her identity secret. If Willow and Amy and Jonathan and all of them could openly practice their magic, why did she, the Slayer, have to pretend she was anything less than what she was? Hot chick with superpowers, and don’t you forget it, buster.

   All of Giles’s explanations — it is safer for you and everyone around you if you can remain incognito, and keep all operations clandestine — seemed to pass right through Faith as if her head was full of air. She was strong, mad, had no discipline. After a year assisting Kendra, Willow had become very fond of the word _discipline_. Particularly now that wild, unruly Faith was in the picture.

   “Willow! The ritual?” Ms. Calendar said again.

   “Oh. Sorry,” Willow muttered, realizing even as she said it that muttering that in English was probably skewing the chant. But it was too late to stop now.

   “So what is this supposed to do, again?” Xander asked low as he settled into the circle.

   Giles glared. “This is a multi-faceted, inter-spacial matrix designed to channel the power of the slayer line through the particular manifestation of our current slayer Faith, here, in the hopes that she might gain the power to withstand the Master’s magics and penetrate to the Bronze, perhaps to finally defeat him!” he hissed. “What do you think we’ve been talking about all week?”

   Xander looked up. “Um. I just meant this,” he said, holding up the tarot card. (Well, really, it was a channeling card, but it was easier just to call it what it looked like, and even Willow had been calling them tarot cards all morning.) “Faith was, uh, talking when you said....”

   Faith had actually had her hands all over Xander’s chest, checking out his pectorals like some kind of… of hussy.

   “Just set it in front of you!” Giles snapped.

   Willow sighed. She’d lost her place in the ritual again. Where was she? “ _Sha me-en-den. Gesh-toog me-en-den. Zee me-en-den._ ” _We are heart, we are mind, we are spirit..._ what was the next bit?

   “Is this really the best place to do this piece of hocus-pocus?” Faith asked, interrupting her focus yet again. She was talking to Angel now, since Xander was no longer available to paw at. She’d sauntered over to the souled vampire. He was always relaxed around Faith, but always got that sadness in his eyes, like he always did around any of the slayers since Buffy….

   Willow swallowed, and forced her mind back to the ritual. She didn’t like thinking about Buffy, either. She’d only been in Willow’s life a few months, but in that time she’d gone from stranger to best friend. It was due to Buffy’s faith in her that Willow had started pursuing magic with Ms. Calendar, even though Ms. Calendar insisted she wasn’t really a witch, but a researcher. It was because Buffy had thought she was best-friend material that Willow thought she was worth anything. But Buffy hadn’t made it, and Kendra hadn’t made it, and now they had nothing but Faith for the slayer, and...

   Why couldn’t they have been doing this spell for Buffy? It would have been so awesome to snuggle up alongside _her_ spirit, help _her_ fight, be the Megatron transformer slayer pieces as _she_ went to face the Master alongside her beloved Angel... yeah. That would have been nice.

   “It’s just that this library’s right over the hellmouth, yeah? I mean, doesn’t that make the dimensional walls really thin or something?”

    _Concentrate Willow!_ Willow insisted. _Don’t listen to her, she’s just a distraction. “Oo-khush-ta me-ool-lee-a....” From the raging storm...._

   “Giles knows what he’s doing,” Angel said stiffly. “He’s a watcher. He’s trained for this.”

   “Yeah, I know that,” Faith said, leaning messily (and sexily, Willow noted) against the wall. “Just I was just reminded of this really whacked out dream I had the other night? When there was this ritual chanting and all, and then there was this big old _crack_ that happened, and like, everyone vanished.”

   Giles, Angel, and Ms. Calendar all turned to stare at Faith. “You had a dream?” Giles demanded, cutting right through Willow’s chanting. She faltered.

   “Well, yeah,” Faith said. She ripped the flyleaf out of one of Giles’ library books and used it to floss her teeth. “It was just a dream,” she said. “Stupid thing, just thought I’d mention—”

   “Now?” Giles demanded. “You didn’t think to mention a prophetic dream before _now,_ you stupid girl?”

   “Hey, I don’t know that it was prophetic,” Faith said, holding up her hands. “You’ve been talking about this thing for weeks, ‘course I been dreaming about it, just one of those things.”

   Was Willow supposed to stop? Or go on? Did this change anything? She wished Buffy were here. _She’d_ know what to do.

   Or... the spell would. Because it seemed to have caught her, like they did sometimes, the magic taking her over more than she’d really like it to. _“Oo-khush-ta me-ool-lee-a, ba-ab-tum—” From the raging storm, we bring the power of...._

   “Willow stop!”

   She couldn’t stop. She wished Buffy were there.

   And the spell took. The magic left her. _Something_ had surely happened.

   Something, but not exactly what they’d been planning. There was a terrible cracking noise. The ground shook. Xander and Giles stared at Willow, as they all three realized the trembling was centered entirely around them.

   “Oh, shi...aaah!” Xander screamed, as the floor around them started to crumble. The circle that Willow had inscribed on the library floor seemed to have turned into a fault line in the very fabric of reality, and it splintered right through the floorboards, cracks and fissures spider-webbing out.

   And then they were falling. Willow screamed too. She had smelled the whiff of another dimension — or something. It was easiest to think of her sixth sense as a _scent_ since it was hard to read, impossible to pin down, and usually didn’t help her much unless something was really nice or very, very unpleasant. She feared they were falling through worlds, through universes, that they’d open their eyes and find themselves in some hell dimension from which they would never return.

   And instead they landed with a bump, and Willow and the others found themselves in the school basement.

   They stared at each other in bewilderment, shaken, a little bruised, but none the worse for the fall. The splintered circle of floor from Willow’s ritual was cracked, but largely unbroken, and they were...

   “Hey!” Faith called down casually from the hole in the ceiling above their heads. Willow looked up to see her leaning over, her cleavage very obvious from this angle. “You three okay down there?”

   “Yeah. Yeah! We’re okay!” Xander gasped out, sounding giddy and disbelieving. “We’re okay!”

   Ms. Calendar joined Faith, peering over the hole from the other side of the circle. “So, I’m to take it the ritual was a failure?” she asked, smiling knowingly at Giles.

   Giles did not appreciate the humor. “So it would seem.”

   “It’s all right,” Angel said, completing the circle above them. “There’ll be another way to get at the Master.”

   A muffled cry confused them all. All six Scoobies were present and accounted for. Was there someone else here?

   And against all odds a bloodied, seemingly disembodied fist punched its way out from the center of the fallen section of floor. It reached, writhed, grasped, and ultimately retreated. Willow, Giles, and Xander all hastily got up from the circle of flooring. It wasn’t flush to the ground. There was something... something underneath it... something that heaved.

   As the six Scoobies stood and watched, the circular disk of floor cracked, and up from the dust and debris below it came a figure. Bruised, disheveled, filthy with dust and plaster, the figure in the middle was a woman. She was blonde, fashionably dressed, in trim jacket and jeans. She stared wildly at the circle with a defensive fist at the ready. When she realized no one was rushing her, she bent down to help someone stand. Someone in a black coat, with fair white hair. “I’m all right, figure it out,” he was saying, brushing her off.

   “It’s the guys,” the woman said. “But something’s off.”

   It was Willow who first recognized the first figure. “Uh... Buffy?”

   Buffy stared at Willow completely bewildered. “Willow?” She glanced around. “Xander? Your eye! Giles, you...? What the hell is going on? And why are you dressed like that? What….” She looked up. “Holy... _Ms. Calendar?_ ” She looked most shocked at seeing her peering down at them, as she stood next to Angel. “Okay. Something fundamentally Twilight Zone is officially going down here. Someone, somewhere, had better start talking.”

   Willow was about to ask how the hell she had managed to bring Buffy back from the dead — somehow looking older and tougher and with some kind of companion, no less — but she didn’t get the chance. Because Angel had a sudden recognition of the figure beside Buffy, and his face darkened.

   “ _Sssspike,_ ” he said with a furious hiss.

   “Hallo, Angel, mate, long time no—” this Spike said casually, but didn’t have a chance to say much more. Angel had vamped up and leaped down the hole after the newcomer. It took Willow a bewildered second of watching the fight to realize why.  

   Buffy’s companion was a vampire, too.

 


	2. Chapter 2

 

   “So we’ve gone back in time,” Buffy said, for the fifth time, and again, Willow insisted it wasn’t time. The spell had somehow brought Buffy back from the dead.

   “I’m telling you, I wasn’t dead!” Buffy snapped. “Not this time. Trust me, I’d know it.”

   “And actually, that doesn’t explain Spike,” Angel muttered, nursing his bruised head.  

   “Well, didn’t you say he was dead, too?” Willow asked. “I mean, that makes sense, right?”

   “No,” Giles said. “There’s no reasonable explanation for a spell to summon the power of the slayer line to have called in a vampire. Even a... uh... unique one.”

   “Spell didn’t call me,” Spike snapped. “I saw Buffy sucked into a portal, and I followed. End of chat.”

   “Following because you wanted the chance to kill her?” Angel asked.

   “Angel, give it a rest!” Buffy snapped. “I told you, he has a soul like you, okay? Break it up.”

   “I can fight my own battles, slayer,” Spike said to Buffy. “And what did I tell you about waving that around? It’s my deal to talk about, not yours.”

   Buffy was not sorry. She spoke of Spike’s soul easily and freely, and always had, for two reasons. First, at some level he seemed to be ashamed of it, and she sort of thought he should boast. And for another, it was a very useful handle to explain to the uninitiated that Spike was a hero, and an honorable man, without getting into the long history of,  _ Well, he fought to save the world, and he fell in love, and then he started learning how to be really nice, and he was an invaluable fighter on the side of good, and he sacrificed himself for the sake of the planet.  _ And _ he fought to get a soul to prove all that to me, and to himself. So if you’re on the side of good, you shouldn’t stake him. _

_ Spike has a soul,  _ was shorthand for  _ He’s Spike. _ Which only made sense if you knew Spike, and she only ever had to explain things to those who didn’t.

   Except Angel did. Or he was supposed to. Only he didn’t. Only he sort of did.

   Spike had been taken unaware by Angel’s attack. They’d been on fairly friendly terms — certainly not sudden and random assault level relationship. But apparently not so in this time, because Buffy had had to break the fight up, clocking Angel hard in the head with her elbow, and stand between them as both vampires glared yellow eyed at each other, fangy and furious. “Angel, stop!” She’d been more worried about Angel hurting Spike than the other way around. He was the more unpredictable of the two, at the moment.

   “You don’t know this guy, Buffy,” Angel had snarled. “This is Spike. He’s the worst, most corrupt....”

   “He’s my boyfriend,” Buffy had insisted instantly, and Angel had deflated like a popped balloon.

   “Huh?”

   “And he has a soul now, you know this,” she said.

   “You?” Angel had glared at Spike. “ _ You _ have a  _ soul? _ ”

   Spike had only rolled his eyes.

   “What gypsy did you manage to piss off?” he asked. “What heinous act did you commit that got you cursed?”

   Spike nearly dove back into the fray at that, but Buffy stopped him. “Don’t listen. We’re clearly back in time. When is this... ninety-seven?”

   “It’s autumn, nineteen-ninety-eight,” Giles had said. “But you’re not back in time, Buffy. You’ve... been dead for the last two years.”

   That made even less sense than she and Spike being brought back in time. They were in Sunnydale, the library was exactly the same (bar the massive hole in the floor) and everyone was here, Willow, Faith, Giles looking younger but surprisingly world weary. And Xander, with two good eyes and a jokey attitude. But Angel was there, and no one distrusted him at all. And Ms. Calendar... that was the bit Buffy had trouble wrapping her head around. Because Ms. Calendar had been dead before Faith had even been Called.

   “Well, ain’t this a pickle,” Faith said as they tried to have a meeting in the ruined library. Giles had put a warning rope around the hole in the floor, using chairs and book tape. It wouldn’t stop anyone from falling in, but it certainly reminded you the hole was there. “So how the hell would a spell designed to give me the extra power of the slayer line call in one of the past write-offs?”

   Willow and Buffy both glared at Faith, and Giles looked at the ceiling in exasperation.

   “Buffy was brilliant,” Willow said. “She’s was the best person I ever knew, and she was a better slayer than you’ll ever be.”

   “Aw, thanks, Will,” Buffy said. “But I’m not dead.”

   “Not to butt into the conversation, but I’m not, either,” Spike said. “Not at the moment.”

   Everyone stared at him.

   “Well, not the way you all mean,” he amended. “The answer is not blowing in the wind, as it were. What the hell kind of mojo were you trying to do, anyhow?”

   “There is a powerful vampire who has been active here in Sunnydale for the last two years,” Giles said. “He calls himself The Master, and he freed himself a little over a year ago, and set himself up at the edge of town, in a former music club called The Bronze. We’ve sent slayers after him, but he or his henchmen have succeeded in killing two already. Including you, Buffy.” He pulled out his watchers’ records and gave Buffy the report.

   Buffy felt a little strange looking at her own truncated history. She’d seen the official report on herself before, but it was pages longer than this, and was running into full-book-length by now. This was only a page, barely half a page, actually. It mentioned that her records were short, due to her being discovered late, only after she was Called. Some history of Merrick and Lothos in LA, her arrival in Sunnydale, a few battles, a brief reference to befriending Angel (who was cross-referenced) and, just like all the other slayer histories, it ended abruptly. Slayer called, blah blah, great protector, scary battles, oops, she’s dead. It did say the Master had done it, but there was little detail. The only paragraph on the battle was where her body was found.

   Found in the water, with a bite mark on her neck.... “Oh, god, I know when this was!” Buffy said. “This was that death predicted in the codex, the one I got brought back from.”

   “I knew it, I  _ knew _ I had brought you back from death!” Willow said, with a gesture of triumph.

   “No, that wasn’t you, and it wasn’t magic,” Buffy said. “Just Xander and a good set of CPR.”

   “Huh?” Xander looked up. “I did something right?”

   “As far as I remember,” Buffy said. “You and Angel found me, you pumped me up, and I walked out....” Well. She’d walked out feeling stronger, better, more powerful, and knowing exactly what she needed to do. It had been a wonderful feeling, even though the aftermath had been a bit traumatic.

   “Uh... _ I. _ .. found you,” Angel said quietly. “Me, alone. Xander was here in the Library with the others. There... was nothing I could do. You were already dead.”

   Buffy looked at him. “Did you try?”

   “Try what?”

   “CPR.”

   Angel shook his head. “No breath.”

   Buffy rolled her eyes. “Then how the fuck are you talking?”

   Angel looked surprised, either at her crass words, or the blunt question.

   And Faith burst into laughter. “Oh, yeah, I so see it. So pure. So demure. So innocent. You  _ go _ B!” She came over and held her hand up to high five Buffy.

   Buffy only looked at her.

   “Sorry, B, it’s just I’ve been hearing about you for like months now, goddamn St. Buffy with her purity and her perfection and her prim little ass.”

   “I never said that,” Angel muttered.

   Buffy eyed him. Yeah, actually, he might have.

   “Looks like The Slayer’s got some juice to her!” Faith said, flexing her arm as if she were about to punch.

   “So, that’s what happened to  _ her _ ,” Spike said. “Where the hell’m  _ I _ in this timeline?”

   “Spike was killed by an angry mob,” Angel said. “Like I always said he would be.”

   “Angry mob?” Spike said. “Sunnydale specializes in angry mobs now?”

   “It was in Prague, a few years ago.”

   “Oh, Prague.” Spike looked down. “Yeah, I can see that.”

   “So you see, it’s obvious. This is a resurrection thing. Maybe the two of you were in some kind of... afterlife dimension?” Angel shook his head. “Though how you’d both get there together, I have no idea. And no one ever told me about the soul curse.”

   “Wasn’t a sodding curse, all right?” Spike snarled.

   “And I’m telling you, we weren’t in an afterlife,” Buffy insisted. “Listen, we’ve been here, alive and well, for more than half a decade after all this shit went down already. Hell, we have our  _ own _ shit to deal with now. I need you to send us back to our own time.”

   Willow stared at Buffy, helpless. “But I didn’t take you out of time.”

   Buffy opened her mouth to start shouting, and made herself reel it in. Willow was young here, not even eighteen yet. She was new to magic, completely confused, and this hadn’t been the spell she’d been trying to do. “But you had to have,” she said. “That’s the only thing that makes sense, unless it’s some crazy alternate....” She stopped. Oh. She looked at Spike. “This isn’t our universe.”

   “Oh.” Spike looked about at Angel, Faith, Willow, Xander, Giles. “Pretty damn close.”

   “Some of them can be. That’s what Anya said, way back when. Clearly you and I didn’t survive in this world. And why does it seem to be in the past?”

   “If you’re correct,” Giles said, “and from what I know of multiverse theory you might be, then there’s no reason to suppose that your universe and our universe run at the same speed. It could be that your universe has spun on several more years than ours.”

   “That seems right. Unless one of us  _ created _ this universe. Did anyone make a wish or something? Is this something we can turn back?”

   “I... can’t imagine how,” Giles said.

   “Well, has anyone said anything? Come to think of it, we’re the odd men out, it would have to have been our wish. Spike?”

   Spike shook his head. “I know as much as you, slayer. But I’ve been pretty damn happy lately, as you’re... pretty much aware.” He grinned at her, half wicked, half fond. “I haven’t made any wishes.”

   “Fine. Then we’ll just have to assume we were pulled through on accident. Willow?”

   “I didn’t mean to!” Willow said suddenly.

   “Huh?”

   “I... I guess... I was thinking... in the middle of the spell. I wished... I wished Buffy were here. M-my Buffy. The one... she was the first slayer I knew, and I was thinking... um. Faith and I were... uh....”

   “What?”

   “We... just don’t get on as well.”

   “Willow here thinks I’m reckless,” Faith said, looking at Buffy with a hand up in a dismissive shrug. 

   “You  _ are _ reckless!” Giles snapped suddenly. “You run off without consulting me, you’re erratic, you’re impulsive, you’ve little to no regard for the safety of others, either your team or civilians!”

   “You’re the one who said a team’s the way to go, Watcherman,” Faith said. “I was told one girl in all the world, yadda-yadda. The cheerleading squad was your shtick, not mine.”

   “ _ Actually _ , that was your predecessor, Bu....” Giles stopped and looked down.

   “Buffy,” Angel said quietly.

   Faith looked at the ceiling and shook her head. Buffy suddenly realized she had become a legend in this universe anyway, even dead. Giles had chosen to continue working with the others, even after Buffy’s death. And whenever that came into question, it was clear he would invoke Buffy Summers, the great slayer who had defeated Lothos without any training, who had forged unions with her fellow man, who had gone to face her destined death unafraid. Buffy was both touched and frustrated. She hated to think how everyone had envisioned her after she was out of the picture.

   “Well, reckless or not, it was Willow here who made the screw up,” Faith said. “I think it’s pretty clear this whole Empowered Slayer bullshit is exactly that. So. Sun’s out of the picture, what do you say, Angel? Time you and I get our slay on. Come on, dead boy. Time to earn your keep.”

   “I’m staying here. Uh... with Buffy.”

   “Suit yourself. I’m not needed for this game.” She headed out the door. “See you all later.”

   “No,” Buffy said.

   Faith stopped short. “Excuse me?” she said, arching her shoulders back aggressively. “Uh, you don’t give orders to me, blondie.”

   “I’m not giving orders,  _ Faithy _ ,” Buffy said. “You’re part of  _ this _ game now. Patrol can wait.”

   Faith opened her mouth, affronted, but Buffy closed on her. “I’m not here to bump heads. You’re the slayer here, and that’s great. I know you can do the job. I’ve seen it. But whatever brought Spike and me here might need all of us to reverse, and I want to get home. I have a world to protect there, and my friends are there, and my sister... oh, god, Dawn!” She turned to Spike.

   “Niblet’ll be fine, pet,” Spike said.

   “You don’t have a sister,” Angel said.

   “Long story, Angel,” Buffy said. “Besides, different worlds, everything could be different here. So.” She turned to Willow and Giles. “How do we get me back home?”

   “I’m afraid I’ve no idea,” Giles said. “This wasn’t the spell we were trying to perform. We were attempting to—”

   “Yeah, head, hand, and heart, trying to bring everything into a SuperBuffy. Or a SuperFaith, I guess. My Giles did the same spell once.”

   “Did it work?”

   “Yeah, but I don’t see how that could help us here. And I’m surprised you even tried it,” Buffy added. “It only worked because the four of us were....”

   “What?” Faith asked.

   “Well, friends,” Buffy said.

   “Hey, I have friends,” Faith said suspiciously. Then she pulled a stake out of her pocket. “And for your information, I  _ am _ responsible. I have to go circle the perimeter, or the Master’s chumps get out and eat Giles’s precious civilians. So. Either tag along, blondie, or stay here and talk Magic the Gathering with the Scoobies. I’m off.”

   “I’ll tag,” Buffy said. “Spike?”

   “On it,” Spike said.

   She hadn’t even had to ask him to stay and work with Giles and Willow. He was already reaching for one of Giles’s books.

   Angel hurried up and caught Buffy’s sleeve. “I’ll come with you and Faith,” he said. “I usually try to patrol, I—”

   “Um, Angel?” Buffy said. She knew this wasn’t her Angel. She knew that this Angel had never lost his soul. Had never abandoned her. Had never done all the other nefarious things he had done since then. She knew that all the terrible things he had done, including killing Ms. Calendar, had technically been done by someone else. But even with that knowledge, she didn’t want Angel complications. She and Spike had been dating a long time, and they were very happy together. And it was a little early to have  _ that  _ conversation with  _ this _ Angel. “I’d rather you stayed here with Spike.”

   Angel’s face cleared. “Right. I’ll keep an eye on him for you.”

   Buffy was going to say something about that wasn’t the reason, but no. Not right now. She turned to go after Faith.

   “Buffy?” Angel’s voice was very soft. She glanced back. “Uh... Spike’s not... really your boyfriend, is he?”

   Faith wasn’t going to wait for her, and Buffy knew that all too well. “We’ll talk later, Angel,” she said. She darted through the door, and away from  _ that  _ incipient knot of pain.

 

***

 

   “So, what, in your universe you’re the slayer, I’m still just boring Boston girl?”

   “My universe is incredibly complicated,” Buffy said. “The slayer line got sort of... splintered. I’d rather hear about yours. What brought you to Sunnydale?”

   “Death of Kendra Young,” Faith said. “Never met her of course. When I got Chose, my watcher got this frantic phone call, claiming the hellmouth was unguarded, and get here quick.” Faith laughed. “Giles always says it must have been the council, but I always see him as going ballistic on the phone. We did fine until we got here, then things got heavy. Ended up needing to take Giles as my watcher.”

   Buffy knew how traumatized Faith had been by her watcher’s death in her own world. She wondered what had happened to the woman here, but Faith didn’t seem inclined to talk about it, and Buffy had learned, when it came to Faith, to leave cans of worms firmly closed. They’d get stuck in your hair. “So now you’re here with Angel and the Scoobies?”

   Faith rolled her eyes. “I need  _ Giles. _ Watcher and all that. The others I’m kinda stuck with. The guy just won’t ditch them! What is with him and his cheerleaders, B? Every time I bitch about it he just invokes the power of the predecessor Buffy Summers, The Great.”

   “That probably  _ is _ my fault,” Buffy said. “I was pretty insistent that we keep my friends included, even though Giles said they’d be liabilities at first. But they helped. They really did help, a lot, and then when I left to face the Master without them....” She shrugged.

   “You got yourself killed,” Faith said.

   “It actually probably would have been better if I’d had someone with me at that battle,” Buffy said. “The strength stuff, I was fine, but if I’d had someone to shake me out of his thrall…. Well, maybe they’d have just died. I don’t know. Anyway. I’m only walking around right now because Xander and Angel decided they’d come anyway, and they dragged me out of the water.”

   “I don’t see how CPR would help with blood loss.”

   “The Master had only put me out,” Buffy said. “Enthralled me and then dumped me as I got zoney with the bite. I actually drowned.”

   Faith looked at her. “Drowned? God, that’s so lame. Sorry you had such a crappy death, B.”

   Buffy took a second to decide whether she should be insulted or amused, and went with amused. She laughed. “I got over it.”

   “So what happened after that?” Faith said. “Master set up a demon neighborhood in your universe, too?”

   “No. I killed him.”

   Faith looked startled. “Just like that? You just... killed him?”

   “It was easy.”

   Now Faith just looked insulted. “Well, excuse me.”

   Buffy shook her head. “It was easy, because I got lucky,” she said. “And there’s something that happens when you nearly die. Things get darker, easier, faster. I think it’s the demon inside coming to the fore, while our humanity shrinks a little underneath, to hide.”

   Faith blinked, then stared. “Excuse me?”

   “It’s just a theory I have,” Buffy said, realizing that sounded a little nuts. “I know that can be a result of trauma, but not everyone is like a slayer, and the demonic essence can be a little hard to pin down sometimes.”

   “What demon?” Faith demanded.

   “Oh, shit.” She had forgotten. They didn’t know yet, or at least it wasn’t widely advertized, that the Slayer’s strength came from demonic energy. “Um, we’re not entirely human, Faith.”

   “What do you mean?”

   “I mean, to make the slayer line, they... uh....” Buffy had always thought of the violation as a rape, but probably best not to use that imagery just now with Faith. “Uh, they imbued a young woman with the power of a demon.”

   “What kind of demon?”

   Buffy shook her head. “A slayer demon, I don’t know. I always thought it was probably something similar to a vampire. Fire fought with fire.”

   “Is that why Angel feels like hot-sauce with chips?”

   “Uh....”

   “‘Cause we’re both sorta vampy, you know?”

   “Um.” Buffy knew only a little bit about what Angel’s relationship was with Faith in her own universe. She was pretty sure it wasn’t… but it could have been…. “Are... uh... you and he...?”

   “With Angel? Nah,” Faith said, quickening her pace a little. “I mean, I’d love a bit of  _ unh, _ here and there, since I think he could take it hard, but he’s too busy pining after his  _ One True Lurrve _ .” She looked over at Buffy. “That’d be you, sexy.”

   Buffy annoyed herself by blushing. She was over all this! Faith, Angel, insecurities, questions, she’d been through this stage of her life, she was not going back.

   “So, tell me more about this demon. Just  _ one _ demon, dancing around to all of us as we die, or is it a lot of little baby demon spawn grown up just as we get Chosen?”

   “I... think it’s more like the demon spawn,” Buffy said. “Since there can be more than one.”

   “Wait, there can be?” Faith looked even more startled at that than she had at the demon. “Since when?”

   “Like I said,” Buffy said. “My universe is really complicated. If you really want to know more about it, I can get you the book most of this information is in. It used to be part of a Slayer Emergency Kit... anyway, I can probably get it for you, if this universe is close enough to mine. I know who has it. We should see if we can get it off of him, since the book and the shadow box are yours now. It’s kind of a last ditch apocalypse risk thing, though, if you ever use it.”

   “Well, let’s use it!” Faith said instantly. “This Master bastard has been growing stronger for over a year, and there’s nothing we can do about him.”

   “Why not?”

   “No one can get close,” Faith said. “Anyone who tries... doesn’t come back. Even Angel’s tried, and he’s the only one who can get through the perimeter, so....”

   “Okay, what’s with this perimeter thing you keep talking about?”

   “We’re about to come up on it,” Faith said. “There’s actually two, the real one, and the one the city put up. Here it is.” They turned the corner off Main Street. They were about ten blocks from the Bronze, in an area that used to have Buffy’s favorite Sunnydale shoe store. Instead of a broad window full of stylish-yet-affordable pumps, the building had been pulled down, and there was a fence with yellow warning bands along it, and razor wire on top.

   “What the hell is this?”

   “The perimeter,” Faith said. “Outer version. The inner one’s about a block in. That’s the one the Master set up, and that’s the real one. This one is just to keep idiots from wandering inside and not being able to get out.”

   “What do you mean?”

   “Come on, I’ll show you,” Faith said. She went to the side of a building, jumped up on to a fire escape, leaped over the fence to a drain pipe on a building opposite, and dropped down on the other side of the security fence.

   “Faith?”

   “Can’t handle the jump? So much for the Legendary Buffy Summers.”

   Buffy jumped up to the fire escape and followed up to the drain pipe. “Following isn’t the problem,” she called down. “Just what are we doing?”

   “I’m gonna show you the Master’s field, since you asked. Come on, we’re safe until the red line.”

   Buffy jumped down. “What’s the red line?”

   “That,” Faith said, pointing at what looked like a wavery line of paint running down the middle of the next street. 

   They walked up closer to it, and Buffy knelt down, examining it.

   “Don’t touch.”

   Buffy hadn’t needed the warning. That thing was pure evil. It didn’t look like paint. It looked like blood. Oddly fresh blood, which should have been impossible. It was obviously magical. Her slayer senses tingled. “What’s it do?”

   “This,” Faith said. She picked up a rock and threw it into the street.

   With a sudden flare, the rock rebounded off the air, as if it had struck a wall. Buffy ducked it.

   “What the hell?”

   “Neat, huh? Nothing can penetrate the thing unless it’s organic. Well, for the most part. People’s clothes seem to go through just fine, and there’s probably a butt ton of polyester involved there. Magic. Go figure. But no weapons, no missiles from on high, no flame throwers. Just vampires, and their victims.”

   “But what the hell is it?”

   “It’s a shield put up by the Master to protect him and his cronies while he builds his army,” Faith said. “Half the demons in town live in there now, free and clear. They own this place.”

   Buffy’s ears caught the sound of something. “That... that’s someone screaming.”

   “Yep,” Faith said, sounding grim. “Prob’ly.”

   “Come on,” Buffy said. “If we hurry we....”

   “Hang on there, eager beaver,” Faith said, grabbing her sleeve. “We can’t.”

   “Why not? We’re organic.”

   “That’s the bit I didn’t tell you yet. Anything organic can get in. Only something demonic can get out. And we don’t count.”

   “How do you know?”

   “Kendra,” Faith said grimly. “She went in with Angel after the Master, and one of his cronies took her down.”

   “A crony?” Buffy demanded. “Kendra was killed by a  _ minion? _ ”

   “Well, technically, but she was badass,” Faith said. “Some blitzed-out batshit kook called Drusilla. She wasn’t exactly a walk in the park.”

   “Drusilla,” Buffy said. It made sense. Parallels with parallels. “I get it. Drusilla killed Kendra in my universe, too.”

   “Really? Huh.”

   “Uh... what happened to her?”

   “Angel took care of her,” Faith said. “Anywho, point was, Kendra went in with Ange and she couldn’t get back out. She’d been planning an attack, but.... Well, I guess that was another nail in my coffin, the one-girl-in-all-the-world shit. Giles wasn’t buying it anymore. Unless we get some kind of extra power source for me, I’m not allowed to attack anything but the nasties that come out. He says we can’t afford to keep retraining slayers, I gotta stay alive as long as I can. And facing the Master? Bad juju.”

   “What about Angel?”

   “He can come and go,” Faith said. She sent one half-way sympathetic look in the direction of the screams that were coming from up the block, then shrugged and headed back toward the fence. “He’s our spy. Not a very good one. They don’t like him much. He usually has to hightail it out as they try to chase him down.”

   “So what are they doing in there?” Buffy said.

   “The Master has a plan for some blood-factory,” Faith said. “Which actually means most of the victims that get dragged in there are still alive. Small favors, right?”

   “Not... really,” Buffy said. “They’re being tortured.”

   “Yeah, well, trust me, B. You can get over being tortured. You can’t get over being dead.”

   Buffy wasn’t sure either of those things were strictly true, in her experience anyway. But that wasn’t the point of this trip. “So what’s the patrol?”

   “I walk the perimeter,” Faith said, scrabbling back up the drain pipe. “A lot!” she called down when she reached the top. She threw herself over and landed back on the other side of the fence, brushing off her hands. “Try to keep idiots from being dragged in to a fate worse than... whatever. Got some really hot pieces of tail out of it, too.” She grinned at Buffy through the fence like a feral cat. “Not that you’d know anything about that,” she said. “Not from what Angel’s said, anyway.”

   Buffy thought it was time to assert herself. Faith was younger, and she knew the area, and yes, she was officially The Slayer here. But Buffy had been a slayer for nearly a decade. Seniority should at least count for respect. She took a step back, assessed the height of the fence, and jumped, without the aid of the surrounding buildings.

   She landed in a crouch and looked up to find Faith staring. “Well,” she said. “Let’s get started then.”


	3. Chapter 3

 

   “So. How in the hell did this happen?” Spike was asking.

   Angel was wondering the same thing.  _ How the hell did this happen?  _ He wasn’t wondering how Spike and Buffy got there. He was wondering how the hell those two had ended up together.

   It didn’t make any sense. They were nothing alike. Spike was stupid, impatient, reckless, self-centered, a real firebrand. Yeah, he was deadly, and... well, okay, even Angel had to admit that he was loyal when he chose to be, but he was an idiot! What could Buffy possibly see in him?

   Buffy was perfect. She was innocent and demure, strong but sort of vulnerable. She was clever and gentle and kind. Spike was the absolute opposite of all of that. It was like discovering Maria von Trapp moonlighting as Hitler’s mistress.

   “Well, from what I can piece out,” Jenny Calendar was saying, “between distractions and confusions and Willow’s wishing she was doing the spell for Buffy, the spell didn’t go down the slayer line looking for the original Primeval Slayer. It ended up looking for Buffy, or  _ a  _ Buffy, and ripped a hole in the dimensions to bring her here when it found one.”

   “Is that possible?” Spike asked. “Seemed like a perfectly ordinary dimensional portal to me.” Even Angel looked at Spike oddly at that one. “Hey, I’ve seen ‘em before!” Spike said.

   “Well, I’d never call a dimensional portal  _ ordinary _ ,” Giles said. “But I understand what you mean. Faith was correct when she pointed out that we are directly over the hellmouth. It’s a volatile anomaly that cannot be destroyed.”

   “You’d be surprised,” Spike said with a rueful expression. “Does take some doing, though. You think it was the hellmouth itself did this?”

   “Makes sense,” Jenny said.

   “I’m sorry,” Willow said, muttering to the floor. “I’m a bad witch.”

   “No, you’re a very good witch,” Xander said soothingly. “It’s just that this is a bad hellmouth.”

   “Actually, he’s right,” Giles said. “You would have to have extreme power at your disposal to initiate such a spell in the first place. Even if the spell was wrong.”

   “That matches what Willow and I have been working on,” Jenny said. “I’m actually convinced Willow’s been doing magic since she was quite young. Some of the computer programming she’s managed, some of the hacks and cracks and crawlers she’s created? They’re not natural. There’s no way she could have just happened upon them.”

   “So you really are an electronic wizard?” Xander asked.

   “So Ms. Calendar thinks,” Willow said sheepishly. “That does seem to be how it works. Like, I’d want to find or do something on the computer, and I can’t, so I’ll just take a deep breath and try to concentrate on it, and the right thing will just come to me. And then it actually works. Ms. Calendar says that’s not normal.”

   Xander was staring at Willow. “Well... no.” 

   “So you’re not just starting out on the mojo, huh?” Spike said. “Makes sense. Always thought you got too good too fast.”

   “What?”

   “Oh, where I come from, you and I are mates,” Spike said. “Most of the time.”

   “What is that supposed to mean?” Angel demanded.

   Spike glared up at him. “It means, life’s a complicated bugger, as you and I both know, Angelus.”

   “It’s just Angel.”

   “I know,” Spike said. “Just like to remind you sometimes.”

   “Were you and I  _ mates _ ?” Angel asked.

   Spike got a strange look on his face. “Some of the time.”

   Angel came up and settled down near Spike. “So. How did I die in your universe?”

   Spike looked up. “Pardon?”

   “You and Buffy together,” Angel said. “Must have happened after I’d died. It must have been hell for Buffy. Did I save her, at least?”

   Spike looked like he was about to laugh. “Not exactly.” He pushed past Angel and approached Giles and Jenny. The two were bickering in low voices. They’d been doing that a lot lately. “So if the slayer mojo got this portal open, how the hell do we get back? Just do the spell over?”

   “I don’t think so,” Giles said. “The magic was drawn to Buffy. Doing the spell over again would only draw to her again. And she’s already here. It would either empower  _ her _ with the strength of the primeval slayer—”

   “No thanks,” Spike said.

   “Or just drag her back to the library again. Or do nothing at all.”

   Spike growled low, like a demon. Yes.  _ There _ was the Spike Angel knew.

   “Is this gonna take more than an hour to figure out?” Willow asked. “Because it’s already after city curfew, and my parents are gonna get really pissed off if I come in late again.”

   “Yes, you can go, Willow,” Giles said. “We’ll call you if we have a breakthrough. Collect your gear.”

   “Already on it,” Xander said, going into the book cage. 

   He came back out laden with big wooden crosses and two black hoodies with white crosses painted on the back. Angel looked away, as always, when the kids came out with their gear. The vamp gear was something Kendra had come up with. Faith scorned it as beneath her, but the others loved the stuff. Black hoodies bathed in holy water with crosses painted on with a garlic paste mixed into the paint. Big wooden crosses for around the neck, with sharp lower points to use as stakes. Each of the hoodies had bottles of holy-water stashed in the pockets, too. It was so caustic to vampires that it was even hard to look at sometimes, let alone touch.

   Angel expected Spike to hiss and cringe. Instead he grinned big. “Nice!” he said when Willow and Xander came out decked in their gear. “Harris, put the hood up. Tighten it. There, now you look like Space Ghost.”

   Xander laughed. Angel rolled his eyes. Spike was already trying to cosy up to the Scoobies, was he? Cartoon references might fool Xander, but they didn’t fool Angel. He knew Spike had to be up to something.

   Xander went to walk Willow home, leaving the adults and the vampires to pore over the situation some more. 

   “The problem is going to be finding the right universe,” Jenny was saying. “They’re not exactly labeled with easy-to-read signs.”

   “But they also aren’t untraceable,” Giles insisted.

   Angel didn’t want to be there. The truth was, he wasn’t much of a research fellow himself. Most of the time when Giles and Jenny and the Scoobies went off on this stuff, he waited until they weren’t looking and slipped out the back. That was how he and Faith had ended up such good friends. Neither of them were big on the research front. It galled him that Spike was poring over the books with as much concentration as the others were, even though he frequently tossed them away from himself with irritation before fidgeting and picking up another one.

   Angel wasn’t even sure what he was looking for. Mostly he just held the book and tried to look wise while he listened to Jenny and Giles argue over multiverse theory. “The question is which circumstance or event caused the differences,” Jenny was insisting. “It could be something as simple as a single choice by one of us, even years ago, or something as big as a complete cataclysmic upheaval.”

   “Nothing to do with any of us,” Spike said with certainty.

   “How can you be sure of that?” Giles asked.

   Spike flipped over a copy of the Sunnydale Press which had been floating about the library. Giles always got copies of both the morning and evening paper, to keep track of anything paranormal which might show up as news. “What about it?” Giles asked.

   “Sunnydale, California, United  _ Provinces _ of America?” Spike asked. “Starr Report by independent counsel outlines case for impeachment proceedings against  _ Prime Minister _ Clinton? Things are damn close to my universe, but something happened a long time back in history. It wasn’t anything one of us did. Or if it was,” he said, looking at Angel, “it was long before Buffy was on the scene. My bet is something around the time of America’s Revolutionary War.”

   “Which war was that?” Giles asked.

   “Obviously one you didn’t have.”

   “Was that something you were around for?”

   “Nah, I wasn’t turned until 1880. But you could always ask Angel, here...?” He grinned at Angel.

   Angel glowered. “Why are you assuming it must have been something I did?”

   “It doesn’t matter,” Giles said. “If it was a variation in history that far back there’s no rescinding the action now.”

   “Why not?”

   “It would erase and destroy far too many lives,” Giles said. “It’s not for us to choose the life paths of everyone else in the world.”

   “If it was a few days or something one of us did, maybe,” Jenny said.

   “I’m not so certain,” Giles said. “You can’t just eat up someone else’s days. When you play with history and time people’s destinies can be affected.”

   “Who’s to say they even have destinies?”

   They were bickering again. Angel couldn’t take it any more. He shoved the book he’d been holding into Giles’s hand, pointing at a passage. “You should take a look at this,” he said softly. He’d been trying to find a good time to work it all into the conversation, but he couldn’t.

   Giles repositioned his glasses and looked down. “William the Bloody,” he read.

   Angel hadn’t wanted him to say it aloud. “Shh!” he hissed, though he knew it was too late. Spike had looked up from his book with a smirk.

   It was the history of Spike as Angel knew him. Drusilla’s wicked toy. The depraved monster guilty of slaughtering no fewer than two slayers in cold blood. It was important that Giles knew what they were getting into with him.

   But Giles had the entirely wrong reaction to being presented with this history. “Is this you?” he asked, plonking the book down in front of Spike.

   Spike looked down at the history with a grin. “Looks like.” He glanced over it. “Oops, no, not that one. Or that bit. Angel? Is this one of your other spawn they got me confused with? I wasn’t even turned yet.”

   “Wait a moment. Angel is your sire?”

   “Uh...”

   “Sorta. Not directly. We were mates. Weren’t we, Angelus?”

   “That was a long time ago,” Angel said. “Before the soul.”

   “Before yours, or his?” Jenny asked.

   “Mine!” Angel said, annoyed by the reference to Spike’s so-called soul. Darla had claimed she could smell Angel’s soul on him, but Angel was having no luck detecting Spike’s. Maybe there was something in the eyes... but no. No, that was just ‘cause he hadn’t seen the guy in a while.

   “We had a few meet ups after,” Spike said. “But he forgot how to party once he got cursed.”

   “Good,” Jenny said absently.

   “So, were you cursed as well?” Giles asked, sitting rather casually on the edge of the table. This wasn’t how Angel had wanted this to go. He’d expected Giles to read the history in mounting horror, and then start a detailed interrogation, possibly locking Spike in the book cage first.

   “No, no, I, uh... long story,” Spike said. “Picked the soul up for Buffy, mostly. We had a thing. Wasn’t working out real well, so I went to better myself.”

   “How did you do that?” Jenny asked.

   “Lots of trouble,” Spike said. “Not really worth getting into. Still a work in progress. Any case, not really the deal at the moment. Important thing is getting the two of us back where we’re supposed to be and leaving you guys to sort out your own troubles.”

   “Why?” Angel asked suddenly. “Buffy’s the Slayer. You claim you help her. This is a slayer’s problem. Why are you so keen to get the hell out of it?”

   “Because this isn’t our world,” Spike said. “And we’ve done all this. We’ve been here, done that, got the t-shirt, and sold it for twenty pence at a rummage sale, right? This is a problem that needs to be solved by your people.”

   “How come?” Buffy said, coming in the library door with Faith. God, she looked beautiful! She was so much older, almost haggard, but she was still Buffy. Still strong and artless and seductive....

   “Hey, pet,” Spike said. “Angel here was just wondering why we don’t hang out here for a bit. I was telling him we have a life to get on with.”

   “I do want to get home. As soon as possible,” Buffy said. “But there’s no reason we can’t just cut through things here, so long as we  _ are _ here.”

   “Well, we don’t want to interfere in their world too much, right?”

   “I was thinking about that,” Buffy said. “And I don’t see why not. Most demons in this world and ours come through from some other dimension. I don’t see them trying to be all Star Trek Prime Directive and playing some non-interference clause.”

   “Hell, no,” Faith said. “Mostly they just rip heads and do as much damage as possible.”

   “Right,” Buffy said. “Faith showed me what the Master has done here. It’s horrible. Our first priority, Spike, should be to get home, but while we’re sorting that out, we should try to help. This isn’t a game. We don’t have to follow anyone’s rules. And it’s not our universe, so it’s not some timeline we have to preserve. We were brought here, we’re no better or worse than some other random demon. We can do what we want.”

   Spike shrugged. “Fair enough. You know I’m with you, slayer.”

   “That’s... very noble of you, Buffy,” Giles said quietly.

   “Right. Noble perfect Buffy,” Faith said. “Doesn’t actually get the Master’s perimeter down.”

   “It will,” Buffy said. “You need Super Power Slayer line to crack it you said?”

   “Yes,” Giles said. “The field was created from the Master’s blood, shortly after he... uh... well. After our Buffy....”

   “After he sucked me down,” Buffy said, without any awkwardness. Well, of course, Angel thought, this Buffy didn’t really die. She hadn’t lived the last year and a half grieving her own loss. “So it’s made from slayer power as well as vamp power, and my bet quite a number of innocent victims too, right?”

   “Blood magics can be very potent,” Giles said.

   “So, you need major Slayer mojo to cut through the field. I know exactly where to get some.”

   Spike looked up. “The Vineyard?”

   “Yep,” Buffy said. “We dig it up, hand it to Faith, and my bet is, the Master goes down. After all, he was way easier to kill than a Kubla Khan.”

   “Turok-Han,” Spike said with a grin.

   “Whatever.”

   “I thought Turok-Han’s were mythical,” Giles said.

   “Well, don’t tell that to anyone who gets hold of the hellmouth,” Buffy said. “Because there’s at least one dimension where they’re not. Strong enough evil runs the portal, and they’ll come pouring through by the truck load.”

   “Is that something that happened in your world?” Giles asked in horror.

   “Yeah, well, shouldn’t happen here,” Buffy said. “But we’ll get Faith the scythe just to make sure of that, anyway. How are we going on the getting-us-home front?”

   “Nowhere,” Spike said grimly.

   “Shit.”

   Angel was surprised again. Buffy didn’t swear. It wasn’t in her nature.

   “We’re going to have to call in some assistance,” Giles said. “I was going to make a call to the Council in the morning. See what they have to say about the circumstances.”

   Buffy made a face. Faith didn’t like the council much either, but it was exasperation with a bunch of stuffed shirts, not utter contempt and distrust. “If you gotta, but please don’t tell them about Spike. Or about the scythe.”

   “I don’t even know what you mean by a scythe,” Giles said. “But I would have had to inform the Council of this anyway. It’s far too significant to keep it hidden from them.”

   “Why not?” Buffy asked. “They’re a bunch of evil, self-important murderers. Oh, and Giles? I love you a lot, but if you let them make you pull the Cruciamentum on Faith here in this universe? I’ll slap you back into the fourth grade.”

   Now Angel was very confused. Giles, on the other hand, had gone white. “It... I....” He didn’t seem to know what to say. “I always thought it was barbaric,” he said quietly.

   “I know. We’ll talk on it later. I’ve already warned her to keep an eye out around her birthday, just in case they use someone else for it.”

   “Yeah. Thanks for the heads up, B.” Faith looked on Giles with a new suspicion Angel had never seen in her before.

   “I... still wish to call the Council,” Giles said. “This spell that summoned you here. I believe it to be beyond my research.”

   “No, I get it, call them. Get all you can on slayer multiverse stuff. Call the coven in Devon, too, I want their take on it. And your demon buddies, I’ll need them on call.” Giles kept looking more and more surprised. “I’m gonna have to do something about the Mayor, before the Ascension shit goes down. I think if I kill him before he gets all invulnerable we should be safe enough, but he sold his soul some centuries ago, so maybe we’ll have to scatter his remains or something.”

   “Excuse me, the Mayor?” Angel asked. He knew the Mayor had a strangely sanguine view towards vampires in his town, but he hadn’t realized he was evil.

   “Yeah, he’s a total creep, but I think if we kill him quickly it should be easy enough. We’ll double check, make sure my mayor and your mayor are the same guy, and doing the same shit. Hell, you should get in on this, Faith, I think it would be really karmically good for you to help me kill the bastard.”

   “He’s a demon? I’m on it.”

   “He wants to  _ become _ a demon,” Buffy said brusquely. “I think he’s technically just a soulless immortal wizard or something right now, but we need to take him out quick anyway. In the meantime, Spike, sunrise is like in an hour or something. We need a place to hole up. Want to go see if your crypt is unoccupied?”

   “It should be,” Spike said. “But it’s not like it’ll have cable these days.”

   “I don’t think you two should go off alone,” Giles said. “With everything you’ve just said, there’s a great deal of work to do, and we need to be able to contact you. You should be somewhere with a phone.”

   “I’m not staying in a motel,” Buffy said. “Those places are more dangerous than cemeteries.”

   “I think you should stay with Angel,” Giles said.

   Angel and Spike both looked up, startled, and Faith shrugged. “I’m game.”

   “Huh?”

   “Faith lives with me,” Angel said. “It was safer if my mansion was a human dwelling as well, it keeps other vampires out. But Giles, I’m not sure that’s the best plan.”

   “You have plenty of space,” Giles said. “Just set them up in the basement or something, I need to be able to reach them quickly.”

   “But Spike and I—”

   “It sounds great,” Buffy said. “Is this Crawford St?”

   “Uh... yeah,” Angel said, again surprised. He hadn’t moved to Crawford St. until after Buffy had died.

   “Sounds perfect. I need to hit the all night store and pick up a toothbrush or something. Spike? You need anything?”

   “Some Jack, maybe. I really need a drink. You got blood at the house Angel?”

   “It’s pig,” Angel said, annoyed.

   “Perfect,” Spike said, not what Angel had expected him to say. “I’ll come with you, pet, we can fill each other in. Is there still a 24/7 open on Fifth St?”

   “Yeah. Careful,” Angel said. “It’s run by a Chandra demon.”

   “Well, they’re only dangerous to kittens,” Buffy said. “And olfactory centers. I think I’ll be fine. Faith? Come with us? Spike’s going to need an invite, if the mansion’s your house, too.”

   “All sounds like a plan,” Faith said. “I could use some Jack myself.”

   “You’re underage.”

   “So? See you in a bit, Ange.” Faith waved as she jumped off the desk.

   Jenny and Giles collected their books to head off to their respective homes, and Angel watched his best friend trailing off with the former love of his life and his ex-protégé, and felt... more than a little bewildered. What was happening to his life? It had just been turned inside out, twisted around, and dropped on his head!

   In any case, he knew he had to get back to the mansion quickly. He had to clear a few things away before they got there.  

 


	4. Chapter 4

   Spike knocked on the bedroom door. Buffy knew it was him, so she only grunted, since he’d know that meant a welcome. “Where’d he stash you?” she asked when he came in.

   “Bit of a pantry room down the way. No windows, maybe he thought I’d prefer that.”

   “Uh. Does it have a bed even?”

   “Mattress, on the floor,” Spike said. “Not too bad, room’s got a dresser and such. Even left me some candles. Nice of ‘im to remember I liked ‘em. He made it homely, at least, but nothing like this.”

   Buffy looked up at the canopied four poster in the room Angel had put her in. It was pretty opulent. A little more lace than she liked these days. “Check it out,” she said, throwing something at Spike.

   He looked down at the stuffed pig. “Wasn’t that yours?”

   “Mr. Gordo,” she said. “In my universe, we had a bit of a thing about it a few times. Once, the morning before he kissed me the first time. I’d said he did snore, just like a pig, and I threw it at him. I was… sort of lying, and he sort of knew it. He’d spent the night in my room. I don’t know how he got hold of it.”

   “My bet is he stole it after you died,” Spike said, tossing it back onto the bed. “What’s it doing here?”

   “Well, I have two theories,” Buffy said. “Either he thought I’d want it, so he put it in here specifically when he decided this room would be mine. In that case, he either thinks I’m still a kid who needs to sleep with her stuffed animals, or he really, really wants to remind me of our first night together.”

   “What’s the other theory?”

   “That he’s had this room ready for me since I died, and it’s some kind of shrine to the memory of his lost love.” She looked around. She would have loved all that lace at sixteen. She still remembered waking up with lace marks on her cheeks from the pillowcases she had insisted on, before she’d realized comfort was better than fashion, even when it came to pillows.

   “I’m afraid to ask which,” Spike said.

   “I don’t plan to,” Buffy replied.

   “You think  _ that’s _  bizarre?” He grabbed hold of one of the bedposts and swung on it a little. “This was Dru’s room in our universe.”

   “I know,” Buffy said. “I think this was even the same bed. Not that I saw a lot of it, Angel locked it all up after he got back from hell, but seriously... it’s giving me the wiggins.”

   “Eh, we’ll be all right,” Spike said. He flounced himself down on the bed and made funny faces at the pig for a moment before smiling up at Buffy, all dressed up for bed.

   The 24/7 store had a little bit of everything, but it wasn’t big on variety. Buffy had purchased a hairbrush, a toothbrush, some basic cotton underwear, socks, a spare sports bra, and an oversized T-shirt to sleep in, which had “Californication” written on it in cursive. She hadn’t realized that when she’d purchased it — she’d thought it just said “California” — but she’d been a little distracted by the fact that the cashier hadn’t wanted to accept her currency.

   Her currency had been regular American currency with the past presidents on it. Apparently United Provinces of America’s currency had pictures of the British queen on one side, and historical scenes on the other. The country was run a lot like Canada, Buffy had learned, which was fine, but it didn’t help buy her underwear. Faith had come to her rescue, but she hadn’t had enough money on her to purchase Buffy’s necessaries,  _ and _  Spike’s bottle of Jack. They couldn’t have gotten it anyway. None of them had an ID the cashier would have accepted, Chandra demon or not.

   Faith then offered to steal it, but Buffy didn’t think encouraging her  _ want, take, have,  _ mentality was exactly the best plan if they wanted to keep Faith on the up-and-up. That had made her ask where she’d gotten the money, and Faith had looked embarrassed and said Angel sort of left money hanging around the house sometimes. He had told her he didn’t mind if she took his pocket change. But Buffy knew Angel wouldn’t just outright  _ give _  her money, so that meant basically everything Faith had was stolen, even the money Angel was subtly letting her  _ take _ . This was a bad, bad,  _ bad _  set up, and it made Buffy nervous.

   She frowned at Spike. He had his shirt off, and was looking like some model for designer jeans, or maybe a Billy Idol music video. It was incredibly attractive, and this situation was awkward, and she really wanted nothing more than to fall into his arms and disappear inside him for an hour or two before curling up to sleep against his beautifully cut chest. But this wasn’t their house, and Angel was upstairs with vampire hearing, and for god’s sake, he’d left Mr. Gordo on her pillow.

   “Spike... I don’t know, maybe we should stick to our own rooms. Just for a bit.”

   Spike raised an eyebrow. “Are you saying that because you want to be alone, or because you think Captain Forehead won’t approve?”

   Buffy sighed and curled up on the bed, her hand idly caressing Spike’s, which was idly caressing the stuffed pig. “I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t want to be alone. But it seems really rude to just... flaunt you and me when he’s clearly still grieving.”

   “He’s grieving someone else,” Spike pointed out. “Someone who’s been dead over a year, who was almost a decade younger than you, and who I don’t think he had a claim on in the first place.”

   “We’d kissed,” Buffy said. “And we were, you know... sort of meeting at the Bronze on and off.”

   “Him and  _ her _  were. Not him and you. You never met this bloke until last night. Totally different guy.”

   She hadn’t really thought of it that way, but he was right. The alternate universe vampire Willow who had been traipsing around Sunnydale wasn’t Willow, the friend she knew and loved. This Angel wasn’t Angel, the guy she’d dated and... well, all the other stuff. He was just a guy who looked a lot like him... and had a history with another Buffy who was very like her. “I just don’t know if it’s good manners. I mean, is it considered couth to have sex with your boyfriend in the house of someone who looks like your ex, and... who clearly thinks of you like his dead girlfriend?”

   “I not only think it couth,” Spike said. “I think, considering the circumstances, that it is in fact a moral imperative to make love to your boyfriend, and establish appropriate parameters in all relationships from the very get-go. And thus I believe that, if you want to stay on the side of good, that you should allow me to remove your clothes as quickly as possible, and get down to a good, properly sanctioned, shag.”

   Buffy chuckled. “If we break this bed, I’ll be properly pissed off at you.”

   Spike grinned and dragged Buffy down for a kiss. “We’ll be all manner of good mannerly.”

***    

   “I can’t believe this,” Angel muttered over his mug of untouched blood. He hadn’t eaten, but he couldn’t swallow. The sounds Buffy was making in the room below... the room he’d made up for her... with  _ Spike _  of all absurd characters! It didn’t make sense. “I should have known Spike would do this. It’s so... uncouth!”

   Faith laughed, spilling cornflakes off the edge of her spoon. “Do you mutter that under your breath when I’m getting it on with some idiot I pulled out from under a vamp?” she asked.

   “Well... that’s different.”

   “How? If you don’t mind me getting in a little rough and tumble, you shouldn’t mind her. Can’t blame B. I’d like to get a little rough with her tumble myself.”

   “Oh, shut up,” Angel said, though he’d heard such things about Spike before.

   “She’s in a strange place, and all she has that’s hers is him,” Faith said. “I get it.”

   “I don’t.” He really didn’t. “How could she go for him? Seriously. How does a girl go from the girl I knew to the kind of girl who would take up with  _ Spike? _  I mean, he’s crass, he’s cruel, he’s dumb....”

   “He’s not you,” Faith said, as always cutting to the heart of it. “Come on, Angel, just because you’ve been carrying a torch for a dead girl. We don’t know anything about it, maybe you two weren’t dating at all in her world.”

   “We were,” he said. “Have you seen the way she looks at me? There’s a history there. Something happened. Something real. I wonder what happened to me....”

   “What do you mean?” Faith’s mouth was full of cornflakes, so it came out muffled, but he still got it.

   “Something had to have happened to me, in her universe,” Angel said. “I must have died or something. That’s why she settled for Spike. We’re the same bloodline, it must have been almost like having me. Another vampire with a soul... same bloodline. Some of the same history. Yeah.” He nodded. “That must have been it. I wish they’d tell me what happened.”

   “Well, that’s not really our business, is it? I mean, they’re here, and we’ve kinda dropped them into our problems, so our stuff is their stuff now. But _  their  _ stuff isn’t our stuff. It’s a whole universe away, right?”

   Angel stood up, flustered. “But she’s in there right now... with  _ Spike! _ ”

   “And you’re in here, with me,” Faith said over her cornflakes. “Why’d you take down the portrait, anyway?” she asked, indicating the empty place on the wall with her spoon. “Didn’t want her seeing?”

   Angel glanced at the blank space. It was only conspicuous to them, because they were used to something being there — the four foot high sketch Angel had made of Buffy after her death, her head down, looking demurely at the ground. It was slightly reminiscent of Da Vinci's “ _ Head of a Girl _ ,” but it was clearly Buffy that Angel had drawn. He had entire sketchbooks full of her visage. It was one of the few things he could do to relax when he couldn’t sleep, sketch a portrait of Buffy. She was more than just his love, she’d become his core, his anima, the image he fell back on when he didn’t think he could go on. He’d meditated on her so long, he knew her inside and out. She had been his destiny... and he’d lost her.

   What she had said earlier, about being saved by simple CPR.... The idea made him nauseated. It simply hadn’t even occurred to him, when he’d seen her lying there dead. Death was death, and he knew death. Even if he had thought of it, his first impulse was that he had no breath and thus couldn’t have performed it anyway. But... he sucked in a breath and blew it out. He didn’t  _ need _  to breathe. That didn’t mean he  _ couldn’t _ . But her death was predicted in the Pergamum Codex. He’d seen she was dead, and knew that was what had to be.

   He’d let her die. The realization horrified him. He’d sat back and seen she had been hurt and he’d let her die. Buffy hadn’t simply been killed by the Master. Angel had let her die....

   His fist clenched. “There has to be a reason.”

   “Huh?”

   “Everything happens for a reason!” he insisted. “I know that now. I... I have a destiny. Whistler said, she was my destiny! Maybe... maybe this is my destiny, too.”

   “Whistler,” Faith said. “Wasn’t he that creepy demon with the Bronx accent who went on about you taking the head off that stone statue?”

   “Acathla. Yes,” Angel said. “He said that was my destiny, too, but... I don’t understand it. I still don’t understand it. Buffy had nothing to do with that....”

   “Well, maybe in her universe, she did,” Faith said. “You’re gonna have to ask her.”

   “I asked Spike. He... prevaricated.”

   “Yeah. Sounds like a real idiot to me,” Faith said. She drank the milk out of her cereal bowl and bounced off the couch. “I’m for bed. You’ll feed the cat?”

   “Yeah, I got it,” Angel said absently.

   “All right. Enjoy the show,” she added, indicating the stairs where the sounds of Spike and Buffy getting it on were audible to him, but probably not audible to her. They weren’t being particularly loud about it... no doubt Spike wasn’t a good lay. (Angel already knew this wasn’t true. At least... he knew his own Spike had had certain skills... maybe this Spike wasn’t the same? God, he hoped so!)

   Yeah. Faith was right. He was going to have to establish what Buffy’s history was with him, and quickly, before she made some terrible mistake with Spike and let him think that she was serious about him. Because she couldn’t be serious about Spike. He had to be the worst mistake a girl could ever make.

 

***

 

   “This has to be the worst mistake I’ve ever made,” Willow complained. “I mean, this makes turning my shoes inside out look silly.”

   “That _  was  _ silly,” Xander said.

   “Not when I got kicked out of PE it wasn’t!” Willow said in a mild panic. “And this time, I’ve messed up with... with lifetimes and dimensions and... I don’t know. It’s just that it’s all bad.”

   “So you’ve dredged up another Buffy?” Cordelia asked. “Looks like I miss all the excitement.”

   Cordelia had had cheerleading practice the evening before, and she said the vampire gear messed up her hair, so she tried not to stay out after city curfew. Xander was okay with it, but it did mean she sometimes missed important developments with Slayer Stuff. She usually didn’t mind. But sometimes she got pissy about it.

   They were all three in the student’s lounge, fortunate to have claimed the couches. Xander was fairly sure it was due to Cordelia’s influence in their little clique that they kept being lucky with the couches. No, he didn’t have the smarts like Willow, and he didn’t have the popular like Cordy, but he knew what was what, and he knew there was a social hierarchy in High School just like there was among parrots or primates or... did penguins have a social structure? And was it important to think in terms alletteration, or whatever that word was, when the letters all started the same? Anyway, Xander knew he wasn’t the  _ least  _ popular kid in school, but that was only because he played class clown a lot. Dating Cordelia put him, and his friends, on a different social standing, and it was a social standing that could claim the student lounge couches without getting dirty looks.

   “Let’s just hope this Buffy will be more use than the _  last _  Buffy was,” Cordy said.

   “Hey! That’s not fair!” Willow said.

   “Well, she showed up, mistook  _ me _  for a vampire, went grabbing for guys like she was totally desperate, made a mockery of cheerleading tryouts, ruined the school talent show, and then got herself killed! And isn’t it because the Master ate a slayer that he got so powerful? Also, her fashion sense was always five minutes ago. Really, sometimes I blame Buffy for this town going to pot.”

   “That wasn’t Buffy’s fault!” Willow said staunchly.

   “That... is a little harsh, Cordy.”

   Cordy did not look chagrined. “Well, it’s not as if she was ever anything that special. And if she was a natural blonde, I’ll give up seaweed facial scrub.”

   “I’m certain that would be a legitimate sacrifice on your part, Cordelia,” Xander said, trying to bury the sarcasm of it.

   Cordy would retreat behind fashion and makeup at the first sign of any social threat. Sometimes he wished she’d let that stuff go. Money and makeup and fashion and popularity seemed to be the whole of her world when she put on her public face. It was all held up with a scaffolding of cruelty, selfishness, and shallowness that made everyone who might damage her image cringe away in mortal terror. The thing was, he knew that wasn’t what Cordy was actually like. She wore Queen Bee like it was makeup, and when she took it off and relaxed she completely changed color.

   Cordelia was actually full of self-doubt, could be incredibly kind, and was a bit smarter than he was. But her family equated money with love, and social standing with self-worth, and it had made her personality rocky. If Cordy wasn’t beautiful and popular, her parents would think her a failure. Since they only showed love by buying her things so they didn’t have to spend time with her, and sending her on vacations that they themselves did not then go on, she was terrified of letting that inner core of herself show. Rejection was inevitable.

   What shocked him was that she was strong enough to leave a little crack open in her façade to accept him publicly.

   But Sunnydale was a scary place these days. All demons wandered openly, murderous demons operated with impunity, and whether or not you could trust someone to stand beside you if a monster was breaking down the door had become more important than whether or not they could catch a football or make a basket. Even Willow and the others practiced their magic openly. Amy and her friend Michael had started a Magic Club after school, which was becoming increasingly popular as an extracurricular. Xander was friends with Willow, who was known as Ms. Calendar’s pet, and Ms. Calendar was known as the person to go to for occult stuff if you didn’t want to listen to Giles drone on for half an hour before he got to the point.

   In short, Xander wasn’t a bad choice for a boyfriend these days. Despite the fact that Cordy still seemed to think she was lowering herself. And that he was still crushing on Buffy.

   “Well, she’ll be lucky if she can get a decent hair dye in Sunnydale, with the way her failure has made the place. And you should warn her, there’s nowhere to get a decent facial these days, Willow, and really, she needs them.”

   “I’m sure she can ask her boyfriend to pick some dye up in LA, if it’s really important to her,” Xander said carefully. “Or you can ask  _ him _  if the carpet matches the drapes, but really I’m not that curious.”

   The false cruelty faded slightly from Cordelia’s eyes. “Oh. She brought her boyfriend?”

   “He says he followed, when he saw she was being sucked into a portal,” Willow groaned. “So I didn’t just ruin one person’s life, I ruined two.”

   “Well, at least they’ll have each other. Uh... how long have they been dating?”

   “No idea,” Xander said, putting his arm around Cordelia, which she allowed to happen. He could feel the tension in her shoulders. If they’d been alone, he would have stroked her a few times, made her calm down, and simply promised her that there was nothing to worry about. She would have denied she was worried, and then kissed him to prove to both of them that she wasn’t, which would have properly calmed her down. But they weren’t alone. So he did the next best thing. “But it could have been years. She looks in her mid-twenties.”

   “She does?” She relaxed even more. Cordelia was a little self-conscious about her age. She was actually almost twenty, her birthday before graduation. She’d been held back twice, once when a world-tour her parents had sent her on had eaten half a school year, and once when she hadn’t quite figured out the right balance between hiding her intelligence and still getting decent grades. She didn’t brag about it, and lied, claiming she was eighteen. But Willow and Xander and anyone paying attention knew the truth. Knowing that this Buffy was even older than her, probably too old for Xander, was also likely to be comforting.

   “Well, in that case, I feel really sorry for her,” she said, and Xander smiled.  _ There _  was Cordy. Not “the Cordy he knew” because really, he knew the cruel and shallow “bitch queen” better than the soft self-sacrificing sweetheart she had occasionally let him see. But there was the Cordy he actually loved under the façade and the bristles. Not that he didn’t love her steel. But not when it cut her as much as it cut everyone else around her.

   “It’s got to be awful, just suddenly dragged from your own world like that.”

   “I know,” Willow said. “I feel terrible!”

   She was almost in tears.

   “Hey, it’ll be okay,” Xander said. “Giles and Ms. Calendar will figure it out. Maybe you can hit up the Magic Club, they have a meeting this afternoon, right? Maybe see what they can tell you.”

   “I don’t think so,” Willow said. “Mostly they just like to levitate coins and talk in funny voices and see if they can make chocolate frogs hop. It’s all really juvenile.” She sighed. It was kinda sad for Willow. She liked it when her magic  _ did things _ .

   The bell rang.

   “Well, maybe you can ask them anyway,” Xander said, getting up for class.

   “They’d probably just want to see if they could do it for themselves. That Tucker, he’s really starting to creep me out with his demon dimension stuff. And he wants to bring his little brother into the club, and he’s only a freshman. It was supposed to be for upperclassmen only.”

   “Well, I’ll check in after school on _  this  _ Buffy,” Cordelia said. “Telling her where to find a good manicure in this town has  _ got _  to be more important to her than the magic-geek-squad.”

   Xander knew this was Cordy’s way of offering inclusion. “That sounds like a good idea. Can’t wield a stake with messy nail polish.”

   “I know, right?” Cordy said. She leaned over and gave Xander a kiss on the cheek. “See you at lunch.”

   Xander made a small sound, as always amazed that this stunning thing wanted to touch him. He had to put up with a lot for it — her personality left a lot to be desired, and he was constantly crashing up against her rocks and shoals — but when he could reach the core of her, she was definitely worth it. He turned to give Willow a wave as he headed to class, and was startled to find his best friend crying.

   “Hey!” Xander leaped forward and wiped her tears with his sleeve. He didn’t have a handkerchief, or he’d have had her blow her nose. She looked like she did when she was a little kid, crying over something utterly beyond her control. “Hey, it’s gonna be okay. It’s not your fault.”

   “But I did something really... really bad this time, and I checked this morning. Giles says he doesn’t know if there’s  _ ever _  going to be a way for them to get home! Xander... I’ve destroyed the life of my best friend! Or, uh, well. My other best friend. My best girl friend.”

   “You really didn’t know Buffy all that well,” Xander pointed out.

   “But I loved her! And she loved me, she was so... oh!”

   “Hey, hey.” Xander put his arms around her as her tears redoubled. “It’s really going to be okay. Buffy seemed to take it in stride.”

   “She’s the slayer,” Willow murmured into his shoulder. “She has to do that.”

   “And she’s going to handle it fine,” Xander said. “I know it.” He pulled away a little to look down at her. “You’re not a bad witch. Say it with me. You’re not a bad witch.”

   “I’m not a bad witch.”

   “You will find a way to fix this.”

   “I will find a way to fix this.”

   “You have a purple nose.”

   “I have a purple... Xander!”

   Xander laughed and kissed said nose, which was not purple. At least he’d gotten her to stop crying.

   He pulled away and looked down, and she was looking up at him through out of her tear streaked face, and he felt... a pull.... He almost bent and kissed her lips....

   “Oh. Um. Ah. Okay.” He pulled away. Okay. That was weird. Faith was bad enough. He couldn’t let his hormones start playing games with Willow now. “Uh. We’re gonna be late for class, I—”

   “Oh, I... I know,” Willow said, not looking at all like she was trying to shake off the sudden sexual tension which had bloomed between them.

   Xander turned and fled down the hall without saying goodbye. Uh-oh. Uh-oh, uh-oh, uh-oh. Cordy was nervous enough about Buffy, or  _ a  _ Buffy, being back in town. How insecure would she get if she thought Xander and Willow were remotely interested in each other?

   Which they weren’t. Or  _ he _  wasn’t. Of course he wasn’t.

   No.

   Why did stupid mundane human problems always have to get mixed in with the magic? It just wasn’t fair.


	5. Chapter 5

 

 

 

   “Buffy... we need to talk.”

   Buffy looked up, feeling a clench in her stomach as if she’d just discovered a demon in the kitchen. Well, technically, she _had_ discovered a demon in the kitchen, but it was also technically his kitchen, and she knew he lived there. She also knew he wasn’t likely to be going for her throat, but it closed up anyway just seeing him.

   It was only two in the afternoon. She had hoped he was still asleep. But, apparently, no such luck.

   “Hi,” she said, forcing the word past the lump. _Talk about work._ “So, I was just about to head over to the school and find out if Giles found out anything from Travers. Then, I need to head over to this vineyard. If this universe is close enough to my universe, then there’s a weapon there I think we should get to Faith. I think I mentioned it last night, we call it a scythe, though really, it looks more like a big fire axe—”

   “Buffy.” Angel stood just a little too close to her, just like he always used to do when she was younger. Back then it had made her heart speed up and her insides tremble and her knees go weak. Now it was sort of pissing her off, because she wasn’t sixteen anymore, and she knew who did things like that, and why. It was an intimidation and a seduction technique, not a move made by a friend or a co-worker or anyone who was after an actual exchange of information. It was a power move.

   Angel had always made her feel powerless. She was pretty sure these days that he’d meant her to.

   Instead of letting it melt her insides like it did when she was sixteen, Buffy made it very clear that he was invading her personal space and shrugged her arms awkwardly, making him either move back or admit that he was standing too close on purpose. He moved back, but didn’t get out of her way when she went to reach for a coffee mug. Rather than awkwardly try to sneak around him, she literally clipped him with her arm as she reached past, her moves quick and economical. It bothered her that she was assessing every single move, up to and including how quickly she was breathing — shallow, as if tensed up for a blow. This was like a battle.

   “What did you want to talk about, Angel?” she said, not apologizing when she let the cupboard door almost clock him in the head. If he was going to invade her personal space, he could deal with the consequences.

   He ducked, but was still right there, so she let the coffee cup come a little too close to his face as she turned to fill it. There. _Now_ he finally took a step back.

   “Buffy, I need to know about us,” he said.

   “There is no us, Angel,” Buffy said, but she let her tone be gentle. He was grieving someone who really had loved him. Death was a little different than a bad break up.

   “But there was, Buffy. What happened?”

   “She died, Angel,” Buffy said. “That’s what happened. Your Buffy died.” She looked up at him. “That’s all. I’m not the same girl.”

   Angel looked down. He looked like a little boy when he did that, that sheepish lost look which had made her forgive him, over and over again, for things which should have been unforgivable. It didn’t always work on her these days, but for this... okay. She could forgive him for mistaking her for his lost love. They did look alike. “Were we... were you and... was there another Angel? Where you came from?”

   _No. There wasn’t. We had no history at all, I fell in love with Spike, and there were no complications. Everyone lived happily ever after, and no one ever had to question anything, ever. No doubts. No uncertainties. I never loved anyone remotely like you._

   And what actually came out of her mouth was, “Once,” which she kicked herself for instantly. _Why didn’t you just say no?_

   “What happened to him?”

   “It... didn’t work out.”

   “Not... at all?” Angel asked. “Was... was it the same, between you, as it was for us? I mean... her and me?”

   “I... don’t know,” Buffy said. “I would assume that’s likely. From what Faith’s told me, a lot of things are very similar, even the things that look like they shouldn’t be. I mean, I existed, we all exist, which means all our parents met in roughly the same ways and had sex at roughly the same time.” Why did she just decide to bring sex into this conversation? She was a complete and utter moron! “And, uh, well, Faith says Drusilla killed Kendra in your universe the same as mine, so birth and death must all... have some kind of pattern. Something similar universes all follow, something that... echoes, at least. Variations on a theme.”

   “A destiny.”

   Buffy had been deliberately avoiding that word. “I guess.”

   “So... what happened to break our destiny, in your world?”

   “Uh....”

   “The Powers That Be told me we were destined, you know. Through Whistler.”

   The only time Buffy had met Whistler, she’d threatened to turn his ribcage into a hat, so she didn’t have much faith in that asshole.

   “Nothing,” she said. “We met, you decided to try and help the slayer, to atone for a lifetime of slaughter. Destiny fulfilled.”

   “Buffy,” Angel said, taking hold of her arm. She stared down at it, and he released her, but not before some kind of electricity had in fact bloomed between them. When Buffy was sixteen, she would have been sure it was lust and love and yes, probably destiny. Now she wasn’t entirely sure it wasn’t just her slayer senses telling her, _Yeah, this bugger is dangerous._ (And for some reason she had given her slayer senses Spike’s accent....) Not to mention all the terrible things her own Angel had done to her in her own world. “Were we more than friends?” he asked.

   “We were never friends,” Buffy murmured, remembering something Spike had said to them once. It was true. They had never been friends, they were never going to _be_ friends. She looked up at Angel’s face. His chocolate brown eyes seemed starved with desperation and what he clearly thought was love for her. But as Spike had pointed out, very insightfully last night, that love wasn’t for her. It was for someone who had been dead for more than a year. Someone who, if she was the same as Buffy had been at sixteen, really hadn’t been sure how she felt about Angel in the first place. Someone who Angel would likely have betrayed if they’d stayed together. “I really have to go to work now, Angel,” she said. “Spike and I need to go home.”

   She ducked past him and caught up her coffee mug, bringing it back down to her basement room.

   She hated herself. She was trembling. She knew she wouldn’t be trembling if it was her own Angel barging into the life she had forged for herself and trying to bring up what their relationship had been. But that Angel had foreclosed on that right when he’d betrayed her the second time and dumped her to run off to LA. (He really should have foreclosed on it when he’d lost his soul and nearly destroyed the world, but hell, she’d already forgiven him for that one, when he then decided to break her heart for shits and giggles.) This Angel hadn’t done anything to hate him for. Not... that she thought his seduction and manipulation of an underage girl was the nicest set of behaviors in the world, but it wasn’t... god! Why did Angel always make it hard to think?

   Spike was there, still asleep in the bed, looking sexy and gorgeous and... hers, thank god, hers. Thank god he had come with her. She couldn’t imagine what she’d be like if she had to face this disturbing echo of her own past without him. Spike did not make it hard to think... well, most of the time. (Not that he couldn’t leave her tongue-tied if he tried for it.) He _was_ her friend. He was her staunch ally. He was her most reliable supporter. And the sex had been glorious every single time, from the first time up until last night, which had been peaceful and affirming and everything she’d needed.

   She knelt down and kissed him gently on the lips, and he hummed and looked up. “I’m headed to the school,” she whispered. “Meet me there after sunset?”

   “Or I could go through the sewers,” Spike said sleepily.

   “Careful, the Master’s field is a sphere, goes both over and under the city,” she said. She kissed him again, briefly. “Get some more sleep. I’ll see you later.”

   “Mm,” Spike said, and rolled over, jamming her pillow — which probably still smelled of her — under his head.

   Buffy wasn’t particularly religious, but as she gazed at him fondly she found herself thinking, _Thank god for you_. She finished putting herself together — ugh, she was going to have to get more than the one outfit — and headed out for the school.

 

***

   

   “And what exactly are you doing in my school?” Snyder demanded.

   Buffy had had several moments in the last twenty hours where she’d felt again like a teenaged girl, confronted with some demon (either figuratively or literally) out of her own past which she had to try and position herself around in the hopes of finding the right stance and doing the right thing. Faith, Angel, Giles, the Master, Willow, Ms. Calendar, all of them had made her feel, one way or another, that something was very off, that she shouldn’t be here, that her very presence in this universe was wrong.

   Snyder did not make her feel this way. “Why shouldn’t I be?”

   “Unless you are a student in this school, or a parent or guardian of the students in this school, or a staff member, you are not permitted on school grounds!”

   “Technically, that’s not actually true,” Buffy said. “Though... you know what? It should be. It really, really should be! Giles! What are the chances of getting the school to qualify as a private dwelling? If we could keep the vampires out, and only leave students invited....”

   “Excuse me young lady!”

   “What?”

   “I’m telling you, you are not allowed here! Particularly not since I suspect you to be dead!”

   “Oh... right,” Buffy said. “Uh, that wasn’t me. The dead girl. Well, obviously, that wasn’t me. Look at me, I’m lots older than Buffy Summers. Um. I’m Anne.” She stuck out her hand. “Anne Summers. Buffy’s older and considerably more attractive cousin.”

   Snyder looked at her hand with disgust. “And what is your business on school grounds, since I have it on good authority that your cousin has been dead since her sophomore year? I trust it is not to consult about her academic prowess, because let me tell you... it wasn’t particularly impressive.”

   “I was... uh....” Buffy floundered for a moment, and then was struck by a sudden epiphany. “I was just hired by the school board as your new guidance counselor.”

   Giles looked up at that with his eyebrows raised. Willow and Jenny Calendar eyed each other.

   “Is that right?” Snyder said, folding his arms. “And why haven’t I been informed of this?”

   “I’m sure the paperwork will be coming through any time now. Through e-mail. It’ll be sent through the e-mail. The computers will have a record of it, is what I’m saying,” Buffy said loudly, and the shared look between Willow and Ms. Calendar suddenly became tense with panic, as they realized it was now going to be their job to see that this came about.

   Willow frowned a moment and then jumped up, nodding enthusiastically. “Exactly,” she said. “It really should be coming through, uh, within the next few hours.”

   “Oh, really,” Snyder said, not buying it for an instant. “I’m supposed to believe that Miss Summers’ older cousin has arrived in my school, just as school property has been violently vandalized,” he indicated the hole in the library floor, “and has been given a job as a guidance counselor by the school board in _my school?_ ”

   “Yep,” Willow said. “She has.”

   “I have experience,” Buffy said.

   “And you know we’re short staffed, sir,” Ms. Calendar piped up. “We haven’t had a guidance counselor since Mr. Platt had his little incident with the... uh... student with the claws?”

   Snyder cringed just a little. Buffy remembered that incident with the school psychologist. She often wondered if Mr. Platt hadn’t died whether she would have continued to date Angel. Platt been able to take the whole ugly relationship down to its core even without all the magic demonic stuff cluttering up the issue. Would he have talked her out of it? Helped her face things before she’d been so much more deeply invested in the whole thing? But he’d been killed, just when she was starting to trust him, and she’d been thrust back into a world of death and drama, rather than having someone sensible she could turn to about her emotional issues. Apparently he had met the same fate here....

   “Even finding enough supervisors for the cafeteria has been difficult,” Ms. Calendar went on. “And I’m sure Ms. Summers here can take up the slack in other tutorial duties as well. Study hall, uh, homeroom, assembly, attendance... uh....”

   “Janitorial work,” Snyder said nastily.

   “I don’t think the teachers union would take kindly to that kind of thing,” Buffy said with a grin, having heard of such things.

   “Or the janitorial staff, for that matter,” Giles added over his shoulder.

   “But anyway,” Buffy said. “Guidance counselor. I’ll expect an office, with a desk and a computer by tomorrow. Friday, at the latest. And,” she purposefully put her hand on Snyder’s shoulder in a conspiratorial tone, “I’d like a list of our most _troubled_ students.”

   Snyder’s eyes narrowed. “There’s something fishy about this. I’m going to call the school board.”

   “They’ve all gone home,” Buffy said. “It’s after five.” This was true.

   “First thing in the morning then!” Snyder said. “And if they don’t have an Anne Summers on their payroll, I’m going to see you arrested young lady!”

   Buffy rolled her eyes. Wouldn’t be the first time. Snyder strode out of the room looking self important, and Buffy turned to Willow with a sheepish grin. “Up to it?”

   “You put me seriously on the spot!” Willow said.

   “We can do it. Just insert Anne into their new hires,” Ms. Calendar said. “I really wasn’t kidding about Sunnydale being short staffed. We’ll put in the hack tonight, Willow, and anything that doesn’t seem kosher I’ll call them about in the morning, and I’m sure they’ll just make it look right, thinking it’s a clerical error.” She looked up at Buffy. “The real problem is going to be faking the job.”

   “Actually, I _do_ have experience,” Buffy said. “I was the high-school guidance counselor for nearly a whole school year in 2002.”

   “Nearly?”

   “Well, the school got sucked down into the fiery maw of hell. So... I didn’t have a chance to file my taxes.”

   Everyone stared at her for a moment in horror before turning back to their respective research. Buffy guessed no one wanted to know exactly what happened in 2002, since it sounded really terrifying. “That’s... really not likely to happen here,” she said, with false cheerfulness that she knew no one was going to believe. She actually didn’t think it _was_ going to happen here, not with the First Evil and the Turok-Han and Spike with the Liz Taylor jewelry ripping a crater into the earth. “At least... not the same way,” she realized. There might have been something set up in the paths of destiny which meant that Sunnydale would meet a similar fate to her own universe, just like Kendra had.

   “There you are,” said a familiar voice, and Buffy turned. She was startled to see Cordelia entering the library. She really shouldn’t have been — logically, she knew there was no reason Cordelia shouldn’t be there. But Cordelia was dead in Buffy’s universe, and for a moment she was ridiculously glad to see her.

   “Cordy!”

   Cordy took a step back, a little surprised by Buffy’s bright smile. “Um. Yeah. Listen, I just heard you were back in town. Or something. Sorry I couldn’t get here just after school, Ms. Nieffenegger made me stay and do my entire history essay where she could see me, just because she found out I’d hired Willow to do the last one.”

   Willow shifted uncomfortably and wouldn’t look up from her laptop.

   “Anyway, I heard you were new here, even if we sort of know you, so I wanted to give you a coupon for thirty percent off a manicure at Miss Peri’s Nail Salon. I mean, _I_ don’t need coupons or discounts, but I thought you might find it useful, if you wanted your nails done in a way that doesn’t make you look like Miss Trailer-Trash, 1987.” She leaned forward conspiratorially. “I swear, all the other nail salons in this town are run by demons who haven’t changed their colors since last decade.”

   Buffy actually laughed. It was refreshing to see Cordelia just... being Cordelia. This was her way of welcoming her. “It’s really, really nice to see you again, Cordy!”

   “Oh. So you and I were friends where you came from?”

   “We... uh, grew apart after graduation, but yes,” Buffy said.

   Cordelia frowned. “So how does this work? You’re not from the future, but you are?”

   “We believe Buffy’s world moves at a faster pace than ours,” Giles said from over his book. “In fact that’s our best clue at locating it, right now. The time dilation.”

   “Does this mean you know my future?” Cordelia said, jumping at the idea. “Do I get out of dead and alive Sunnydale? I go to LA and make my mark as a movie star, don’t I?”

   “Um...”

   “Cordy, it’s not really the same universe,” Xander said, who had burst through the door a moment after her. “And you left these.” He tried to pass her her school books.

   “I know I did,” Cordy said. She didn’t take them from him. “So. Does Xander learn how to stay out of the way when I’m working, or is he a real nuisance with my directors?”

   “It... really isn’t the same universe, Cordy,” Buffy said. “My future isn’t going to be yours.”

   She sighed. “Could you at least tell me if I’m going to be elected Homecoming Queen? Because some of my contenders might give me a run for my money, and I want to know how best to attack.”

   “You’re gonna have to work hard,” Buffy said. “It’s a tough race. Don’t get distracted by friend troubles. Oh, and drive yourself! No limos.”

   “No limos?” Cordy looked disappointed, but not devastated. “Can I borrow daddy’s Porsche, at least?”

   “Yeah, that should be safe enough.”

   “Great.” Cordy pulled out a notebook and made a neat line through an item there. “I told you a limo was kitsch,” she said to Xander. “Willow, how’s it going with that popularity database?”

   “I was going to make it up tonight,” Willow said, “but now I have a hack I need to do on the school’s computer.”

   “I’m not going to choose you as one of my courtiers if you don’t pony up,” Cordelia warned. Willow rolled her eyes. “Come on, if you come with me and Xander you’ll be safe. You don’t want to be going to the dance all alone.”

   That didn’t match. “What happened to Oz, anyway?” Buffy asked.

   Xander looked worried, most of the others glanced Buffy’s way, wary, and Willow looked suddenly tragic. “You... you knew Oz?” she asked.

   “Well... yes.”

   “He... um... he got turned into a werewolf, here,” Willow said. “A hunter got him.” She looked back down at her laptop, her face so white and drawn that Buffy felt terrible for bringing it up.

   So. Buffy hadn’t been here to save Oz, and Kendra or Faith or whoever had been the slayer when all that went down hadn’t been as determined to save human life, even demon-tainted human life, as she had been. Meaning Willow had never really had him as a boyfriend, and never managed to achieve any confidence in that regard. In fact... she’d also lost Jesse, and the Buffy of this world. It was clear Cordelia was only tolerating her, at least so long as she helped her study, or with computer stuff, or for whatever else she could get out of her. Willow’s circle of friends probably included Xander and Ms. Calendar and that was it. The only thing she had boosting her self-esteem was the magic....

   Damn. That could go south far too quickly if it wasn’t nipped soon. She was already ripping open dimensions and excited about the prospect of bringing someone back from death.

    _Problem for another day,_ Buffy thought.

   “Xander, it’s almost curfew,” Cordelia said. “I need to get home.”

   “I’ll walk you to your car,” he said. The two of them nearly ran into Spike, Faith, and Angel as they came through the door.

   “Hey, Xander, keep pumping those books,” Faith said as she walked in. “So. What’s the sitch?”

   Buffy glanced outside. The sun wasn’t down yet. “You came through the sewers?”

   “I showed Spike the path through that didn’t go through the demon-zone,” Faith said. “Any luck finding your own dimension?”

   “Not yet,” Buffy said. “I was waiting for you two,” she added to Spike and Faith. “Giles was going to drive me to the vineyard. Shadow Valley Winery, and we’ll see if what I’m hoping for is there.”

   “Do you need me to come?” Angel asked hopefully, again coming just a few steps too close to Buffy.

   “I was hoping you could do a reconnaissance at the Bronze tonight,” Giles said, without apparently noticing that Angel had only been speaking to Buffy. Hadn’t taken his eyes _off_ Buffy since he’d walked through the door, in fact. “Make sure that Buffy’s appearance hasn’t raised any unpleasant alarm bells among the demons. Do you think you could do that?”

   “If... that’s what... Buffy wants me to do,” Angel said.

   Why, when his voice was soft and gentle and he was giving her the power to make his choices for him, did that feel like she’d been punched in the gut? _Your life has nothing to do with me!_ she wanted to shout at him. _I’m not your Buffy Summers!_

   “Yeah, that sounds like a good plan,” she said. “We do need to know if the Master sensed there was a new slayer in the works or something.”

   “All right. I’ll get started through the sewers now, come up after sunset.” He paused. “We’ll talk more when you get back from your mission,” he said to her earnestly, then turned to leave.

   “Don’t get caught,” Faith said absently as he brushed past her. He didn’t even glance at her, Buffy noted.

   Her fist was clenched. She didn’t even realize it until she felt Spike’s hand on hers, softly opening the fingers. “We’ll get it sorted, slayer,” he said gently.

   Buffy closed her eyes. “I know, it’s just really....”

   “Confusing,” Spike said.

   “I’m not confused,” she said, looking directly at him. “I’m really not. It’s just....”

   “All still there,” he said. Then he grinned. “But he wears lifts, you know.”

   Buffy chuckled.

 


	6. Chapter 6

 

   “It’s here,” Buffy said on the overgrown lawn of the winery. “I can feel it.”

   “I can’t feel anything,” Giles said.

   Buffy was used to the power of the scythe, so she knew what she was looking for. Faith didn’t seem to have a clue, but she was antsy. Buffy remembered that was how _ she’d _ first felt at the Shadow Valley vineyard before she was certain the scythe was there. Antsy. Like there was something she had to do. Of course, it had been hard to pinpoint the source of that antsyness, given that the place had been crawling with bringers, Caleb the Right Hand of Evil had been fuming there like a rotting carcass, and the whole world had been slowly circling into a particularly dark cycle of the ongoing apocalypse. Buffy hoped this universe wasn’t going through such a long and drawn-out war which made “apocalypse” look like it needed a plural, but she wouldn’t have bet on that optimistic horse.

   “Look,” she said to Faith, taking the other slayer’s arm. She held her hand out to the ground. “Feel.”

   “Yeah, what?” Faith said, not concentrating at all.

   “Feel,” she said. “Like... like when you know there’s a vamp nearby, only... the opposite.”

   Faith rolled her big brown eyes, heaved a world weary sigh, and spread her fingers out more carefully. She frowned. “Is it...? No. No, nada.”

   “Here,” Spike said. “Try this.” He went up to a derelict vine, grapes withered into dusty raisons, the leaves brown-tinged with autumn, and ripped off a forked woody stick. He broke it down into about the right shape and showed Buffy how to hold it.

   “How does a pointy stick help? Unless I wanted you dusty. And if you don’t give me an answer I like, I might,” she added with a grin. Spike was not above pulling something like this just to make her look like an idiot, though usually not in front of someone like Faith.

   Spike chuckled. “Like a dowser,” he said. “Trying to find water. Let the point go down when it’s directly over the treasure. Giles, you got the map?”

   “How does the wood help?” Buffy asked again.

   “It’s just a channel, the sensing power comes from you,” Spike threw over his shoulder. “Come on, basic humans can do this. Dru could,” he added.

   “Drusilla was a psychotic, superpowerful seer,” Buffy snapped at him good naturedly. “She didn’t mind looking like a ditz.”

   “She was the  _ ultimate _ ditz,” Spike said. “And she looked _ great _ as a ditz.”

   Faith glanced up at Buffy. “Spike knew Drusilla?”

   “She’s his ex,” Buffy said. “And his sire,” she added. “My bet is, if this universe’s Spike died in Prague, he died protecting her. Let’s see... whoa!” The damn dowsing stick had worked. It was like someone had tied a string to the front of the wood. It drove itself toward the earth hard enough it actually buried the point a half inch. She pulled it out, dragged Faith a few feet away, and had her hold it. “You try it.”

   Faith held the forked stick in both hands, and her eyes went wide. “It’s... it’s....” She took those few steps forward and the stick plunged into the earth again. “Wow. What the hell is down there?”

   “It’s a weapon, forged for slayers, by some organization called the Guardians.”

   “Are those like the watchers?”

   “The watchers made the slayers,” Buffy said. “They came out of the Shadow Men, who did the ritual that made the First Slayer. That was the spirit whose essence you were trying to summon with the spell that dragged me here. The Guardians were a bunch of women who seemed to actually give a shit about what happened to the poor girl, and gave her a decent weapon to fight with. I  _ think _ it might have been made from the same demonic essence we were, but… I’m not really sure about that. In any case, it’s ours. Here, in this world, that means it’s yours.”

   Faith’s eyes were wide with excitement and awe. “So... how do we get to it?”

   “Caleb — uh, the person who found it in my universe. He had a tunnel dug out from under the winery. Think we can find a way to get it unlocked?”

   Spike strode up to the winery’s front door, examined it, then reached his arm back and punched it hard. He stepped back as the door collapsed in a cloud of dust and splinters. “Would you look at that. It’s open.” He bowed her through. “My lady.”

   Faith laughed. “I like this guy. Do you share?” she asked, sliding past Buffy.

   “Not usually,” Buffy said with a smirk. “You’ll just have to get your jollies with some other vampire.”

   “Not likely,” Faith muttered, rueful.

   They headed down into the basement of the winery. There was no electricity. Spike flicked his lighter, and Giles headed back to the car to dredge up a flashlight. They went ahead without him, moving past eerie abandoned wine vats and piles of empty bottles. Buffy was hoping to find the passage that she had used before when she’d gone to get the scythe.

   No luck. They found a wall that seemed to be mostly solid rock. Clearly Caleb and his bringers had done a lot of excavating before Buffy had ever even heard of the vineyard. But the dowsing rod pointed just fine when either Buffy or Faith held it. The sensation of That-Which-Is-Mine was even stronger in the basement. 

   “Well. At least we know it’s down here,” Faith said. “So, what, we drill a little hole, shove in some dynamite and  _ pow? _ ” She flailed her arms out like an explosion.

   “I wouldn’t risk that,” Spike said. “Be more likely to take the building down over our heads.”

   “So?” Faith said. “Place is abandoned, right?”

   “I’m more worried about the fact that half the scythe is wood,” Buffy said. “Yeah, it’s protected from damage by demonic forces, but dynamite might shunt it into splinters. It’s been there for over a thousand years, we really need to regard it more like a dinosaur bone or something.”

   “Dinosaur bones would have been there for  _ million _ s of years,” Giles said, coming up with the flashlight, “but I understand what you mean. What we really need are excavators.”

   “Heavy machinery could destroy it, too,” Buffy pointed out. She leaned heavily against the wall. “What we need is what Caleb had. Bodies. A crew. And Xander’s still in school, so there’s no construction crew he could pay off. And a bunch of us are strong, but we’re not miners.”

   “I’ve done some excavation in my day,” Spike said. “But no, planning a dig is not my forte. I always found a Brain for that work.”

   Buffy knew he meant one of his more intelligent minions, usually someone chosen and turned expressly with the intention of using expertise they had gained as a human in some endeavor or another. Like excavation or research. 

   “We don’t really have the money to _ hire  _ people....”

   “And we don’t want it getting around town that a bunch of people are digging something out for the slayer,” Giles said looking at Faith. “It would put them in extreme danger from the demon population. Which is why I insisted that you try to keep your identity secret, but, no one was listening to me.”

   “To be fair, Giles, I agreed to stay incognito girl, and all the vamps knew within six months, anyway,” Buffy said. “It’s really kind of pointless.” Buffy tapped her foot, wracking her brains. “What would  _ you _ do?” she asked Spike, as the only one who had done this kind of work before.

   Spike shrugged. “Dunno.” He reached down and lit a cigarette, casually puffing on it as he spoke. “I mean, I know what I’d do if I were still the Big Bad. I’d put on my game face, head into the nearest demon bar, boast a bit, and crack a few heads to establish my credentials. Then I’d choose out a Brain and a handful of minions, at least three more than I really needed so I could dust a couple if I ever needed to show the others I meant business.”

   “You wouldn’t breed the puppies yourself?” Faith asked.

   He shook his head. “Nah, I hated making minions. Left that all to Dru, for the most part. Always more fun to just move in and take over, anyway. There’s plenty of demons around here to play bad dog on, just itching for a pack leader.” He shrugged. “But that was before I changed hats.” He stopped, frowning at Buffy, who was frowning at him. “What?”

   “You’re right,” she said. “There  _ are _ plenty of demons around here. More than enough to dig out something like this.”

   “Yeah, but as we all know, they’re sort of working for the other side.”

   “So was Caleb,” Buffy pointed out. “You know… I think we could get the Master’s cronies to unearth the shiny  _ for _ us.”

   “How? I wouldn’t trust just telling them that it’s here and walking off, hoping that they don’t do something nasty with it. Or to it, they might just destroy it, like you said.”

   “I know,” Buffy said. “They’d need an overseer, someone we could trust. A Big Bad on our side.”

   “Like who?”

   Giles was looking at Spike with a new appreciation now. “You’re right,” he said to Buffy. “They don’t know Spike. They don’t know that he’s like Angel. Spike’s history in our universe is completely evil through and through.”

   Spike was looking from one to the other of them with growing suspicion. “What’s that got to do with anything?”

   “Spike?” Buffy said. “How do you feel about joining the Master’s court, and becoming an undercover agent?”

   Spike choked on his cigarette.

 

***

   “They’re gonna smell the soul,” Spike said, hunkered low over the table.“Darla always could. Even if some of the others miss it, the Master will know I have one.”

   This meeting was different from the others. Scooby meetings tended to be sprawling, ranging affairs, with everyone lounging comfortably and throwing around ideas. This one was hushed, tense, worried. And small. Slayers, vampires, and the watcher, that was it, huddled around the table, their voices low. They hadn’t decided yet if they were going to keep the results of this meeting secret from the mere humans among them, but their input wasn’t required, or desired, at this stage.

   “Souls can be corrupted,” Buffy said. “They don’t have to know any of that bothers you.”

   “They might even respect it more,” Angel confessed. “That you’re able to perform evil even with that burden.”

   “Yeah, but what about all the evil I don’t actually want to perform?” Spike asked. “What if they test me?”

   “We could spread a rumor that you got your soul a long time ago. Maybe even hint you got it the same time I did,” Angel said. “I can do that easily, once you’ve been spotted. I checked, there’s no indication that they know you or Buffy are here, or that you came together. They’ll still think it’s you, the you from my history. I can make them think you’ve been evil for years,  _ with _ the soul, that  _ all _ your exploits are weighing on it, not just... from the past.”

   “Would they believe that, though?” Giles asked. “Your curse was for a very specific murder. Why would Spike have been caught up in it as well?”

   “It was sheer luck he and the others weren’t,” Angel said. “After the curse my sire became furious, took Spike and Drusilla and slaughtered almost the entire clan. The only reason the rest of The Whirlwind wasn’t cursed in turn was because....”

   “Was because the headman wasn’t the one who performed the curse, his wife was,” Spike said. “And I ate her. I remember. Darla was majorly brassed off.” His face was dark. Buffy did not ask what Darla had done to him later to punish him for that. She bet it was something disturbing.

   “She said you were hot headed and couldn’t keep your appetite in check.”

   “She was an arrogant priss who wouldn’t share her oh so vaunted plans,” Spike pointed out. “If before she said ‘ _ Go slaughter, _ ’ she’d said, ‘ _ But not that caravan, _ ’ I’da skipped it. That’s on her, mate, not me.” He shook his head. “‘Sides, they wouldn’t have taken the curse off anyroad. I saved us all! Well, all ‘cept you.”

   “Can we not?” Buffy said, glaring at the two of them. She hated it when they got all pally and antagonistic like this. (Yes, she knew it was both.)

    “None of this is germane to the subject at hand,” Giles said. “Is that piece of history similar enough in both of your backgrounds that you can allude to it safely? Remember, Drusilla worked with the Master for nearly a year after Prague. She was his chief lieutenant, and extremely dangerous. She may well have spoken of you.”

   “I’m sure she did, but Dru’s... ah... sometimes easy to dismiss. From what I remember of the few times Darla brought us home to meet the folks, he didn’t respect her much. At least, not the wandering stuff. And… she does babble.”

   “Darla brought you to the Master?” Angel asked.

   “She did in my world, mate,” Spike said. “Only after the Boxer Rebellion, though. He respected the slayer thing.”

   “What slayer thing?” Faith asked.

   “William the Bloody here has apparently fought two slayers in the last century,” Giles told her. “And he killed them both.”

   “And the third did this to you, huh?” Faith asked, gesturing at the whole of Spike. “You must have been some hell of a slayer, B.”

   Buffy wasn’t sure what to say.

   “No, really, I always figured I was being held up to some goddess ideal, who was probably just Cordelia with blonde hair, but you’re actually something.”

   “Anyway,” Angel said. “If we can make them believe that all the evil you’ve been doing was  _ with  _ the soul, that’ll all count in your favor.”

   “Darla would make  _ you  _ prove it,” Spike pointed out. “That time in China? She said you’d finally scarpered after she’d tried to make you eat a baby. What if they pull the same on me?”

   “I’m not saying it won’t be difficult, Spike,” Buffy said. “Look, I know. If there’s anything they try to make you do that you just can’t... I don’t know, feel free to run and we’ll start over. But I really think you can make them believe it. Look, what do you say we introduce you with a fight? You can fake a fight with Faith — they all know you’re the slayer, Faith?”

   “Oh, yeah. Can’t miss it.”

   “That could work,” Angel said. “Have the fight in a church or something, and make it so one of those big crosses or something falls between you and her, so she can escape and you can’t get at her. I know an abandoned one we can stage a good fight outside—”

   “No churches!” Spike snapped. “I’m not fighting any slayers in a church! Not with you anywhere near me, Angel. Buffy, can I talk to you?”

   “If you really don’t want to do it, just say it now, Spike,” Buffy said. “I’ll think of something else.”

   Spike stared at her a moment, and then rubbed his face. She knew what he was feeling. He’d been trying and trying to be good for years now, with varying degrees of success. Now she was asking him to walk a very fine line — appear evil for the sake of good, while doing good within the scope of evil. It took the concept of shades-of-grey and added most of the spectrum, from ultra-violent to infra-dread.

   “Do you think you can do it?” Giles asked.

   Spike sat still for a moment. “Maybe,” he finally said, taking his hands down. “I need a talk with my lady.”

   The others nodded, and Spike stood up, taking Buffy out into the hall.

   He leaned against the lockers out there and stared at her. Buffy stood straight and impassive, waiting for him to speak.

   “What are you trying to pull on me, slayer?” he finally asked. “You’re asking me to play the Big Bad, before the origin of my bloodline, no less, in the middle of a field of tortured victims.” His voice was very calm, but his eyes looked wild. “You expect me to not only act the part, but likely play the part at times. And you expect me to still be me when I walk out of there?”

   “Yes,” Buffy said evenly. She let that hang there before she elaborated. “Because I believe in you, Spike. I believe that you can stand in the center of temptation, with all the reasons in the world to give in to it, and still be you. I believe that you can play the part of evil and still be good. And I believe you have the strength and the courage to do it even when the result might be dust.”

   “Dust doesn’t scare me, slayer.”

   He wasn’t calling her by her name, or any of her pet names. Slayer. Her title. He was speaking to the role.

   Then he said something he hadn’t ever said, not since he’d gotten the soul. “Tell me you love me.”

   She came up to him. His hands were shaking. Very, very slightly, but she could see it. She came so close to him she could feel the coolness of his flesh against her heat. “I believe in you, Spike,” she whispered into his face. “I believe in the heart of you, beyond the soul. I believe in the strength of you, beyond your skill. You are the dark to my light places, and the light to my dark ones. You complete me. It is more than emotion, you  _ are _ me. And I am you. And I would not ask this of you if I did not have complete and utter faith in you, and in us, and in this.” She put her hand on his heart, meaning himself, or his soul, or the space in between the two of them, or all of it put together. “And yes, I love you. But you already knew that.”

   Spike searched her face for a long moment, his blue eyes questioning, frightened. Then his hand caught her face, and he kissed her deeply. “But what if...” he whispered when he was done. He opened his eyes and looked at her in earnest. “What if you see it? Seeing me like that. Will it hurt this?”

   Oh. “You don’t have to be afraid of that, Spike,” she said. “I look back on us, and... I see you... here. Right over there, in fact, all ready to rip my throat out.” She pointed in the direction of the student’s lounge, where they’d had their first battle. “I didn’t love you then, but I look back on that memory, and yes. The me I am now loves you in it, even then. If I can love you when you  _ are  _ evil, then I know I can love you when you’re only  _ playing  _ evil.” She touched his brow. “And it’s a role you know.”

   “It’s a role I know better than this one, slayer,” he said. “That’s what I’m afraid of.”

   “You won’t go back.”

   He swallowed, then shook his head. “I can’t do it. Not without you.”

   “Spike, you know I can’t—”

   “No,” he said. “But I have to be able to come out of there. I have to be able to bolt, or I’ll crack, one way or another, I’ll lose the role, or I’ll succumb to it. I can’t just disappear in there and never come out until the scythe’s free, I’ll need....” He swallowed. “I’d need you. Sometimes.”

   She nodded. Him sneaking out and joining up with the Scoobies at times, even if he was careful, was going to be risky, but she understood. It was a fair request. “Okay. In and out, making sure you’re not followed.”

   He closed his eyes at the offered reprieve. “Okay,” he said. He nodded. “Okay.”

   Buffy took hold of the side of his face. “And I do love you. So much.”

   “You know how much I love you, pet,” he said, his tone slightly rueful. He would only do this for her because he loved her.

   They hugged fiercely, and then Spike straightened his shoulders and strode into the library. “All right!” he announced. He already looked about three inches taller, and danger breathed off of him like steam. “If we’re going to do this thing, I want the fight to look good.” He lifted Faith off of her chair and struck at her, his movements exaggerated and obvious, as far as Buffy could tell, but very violent. 

   Faith was surprised. She blocked the first two blows, but the third punched through her defenses, and struck her in the solar-plexus. Spike checked the blow at the last second, and Faith only grunted at the impact, rather than being shoved across the room. 

   “Good,” he said. “You’re fast enough. You might just have to bleed a little, doe-eyes.” 


	7. Chapter 7

 

   “What’s he doing?”

   “Is that the  _ slayer? _ ”

   “What’s he doing fighting  _ the slayer? _ ”

   “Death wish? He doesn’t look like he’s following orders.”

   “He doesn’t look like the type to follow orders from anyone. Anyone else getting an elder vibe?”

   “Wow. Check out that blow! She’s gonna have a bruise in the morning!”

   “If he doesn’t kill her outright, right now.”

   That was the first vampire to say it: that it looked as if the newcomer was winning this fight.

   The battle was taking place just at the edge of the Master’s field, in the “no man’s land” between the city’s border and the Master’s. They were up on top of a low building with a flat roof, that used to be a retail shop before that strip of the city was abandoned. It was near the biggest gap in the fence, the one the vampires usually traversed when they went out to hunt — those that even bothered these days. They had enough victims living in the demon zone that not all of the vampires needed to leave the field to feed. They had even started breeding humans, getting women pregnant in the pens to keep their population up. It was a real shame the human cattle didn’t breed fast, like kittens. (They had a kitten breeding center going up, too.)

   “Unholy crap, look at the bitch go down!”

   “Move it over!” shouted up one of the younger fledges. “We can’t see the blood!”

   The newcomer had knocked the slayer down, and was pounding at her over and over, in a display that looked as if he was shattering bone, but the slayer was, annoyingly, now out of sight from the street.

   “I’m heading up!” one of the boys shouted. “I wanna see better!” He burst through the door of the abandoned ice-cream shop and forced his way up to the roof, where he could get a clear view of the building opposite. A handful of the other fledges followed him.

   By the time they got there, the newcomer was advancing on the slayer, who was battling hard. She was staggering in a half crouch, and the smell of blood was on the air. It was delectable, slayer’s blood. The newcomer moved like a hungry panther, sinuous and deadly, light on his feet, despite the heavy combat boots he wore. His coat moved like part of his own skin, and several of the fledges felt a frisson of excitement just looking at him. They were all disciples of the Master, of course, but he was a distant creature, powerful and aloof, and many of his minions felt abandoned by him. He had too many subjects to even recognize them all. They were often looking around within their own ranks for surrogates, smaller lieutenants they could follow. The following instinct was strong within the young.

   This guy... by the devil himself, he was dangerous, and sexy, and clearly powerful. Several of the fledges, male and female, found themselves thinking  _ want! _ They either wanted his favor, or wanted to _ be _ him, and that was just from watching one fight from a distance.

   The slayer made a move, desperate, flailing, and the newcomer grabbed at her. She struggled, but he had her. He... no way. He... he’d won? That was unheard of! That was the slayer! How the hell could he have won that fight?

   He opened his mouth and sank his fangs into her throat. The smell of blood strengthened, and the fledges on the street and the rooftops shivered in anticipation.

   And then a truck came around the curve. Most of the fledges didn’t even notice it, but the slayer sure did. At the sound of it she gathered her strength, lifted her arm, and elbowed the newcomer somewhere in the middle region — they couldn’t tell where she’d struck him. His coat was in the way.  He cringed with the blow, and she used the opportunity to pull away, but she was still injured, trapped on the rooftop. The newcomer laughed, showing his evil, bloodstained teeth. The slayer was white, terrified, she backed away....

   “There’s nowhere to go, sweetheart,” the newcomer’s voice could be heard distinctly. “You’re all mine. If you ask real nice, I’ll bring you back, make you like me. How’s that sound?”

   It sounded awesome to most of the fledges watching. They were already envious of the slayer. To have that creature as her sire? What fortune!

   But the slayer, of course, did not recognize the opportunity. She backed still further away, looked behind her, and then... she fell.

   The truck that had been rolling past on the other side of the fence carried ears of corn. The bleeding slayer fell, off the building, over the fence, and landed on the pile of corn-husk bedding with a scream of pain or fear. The truck continued on, oblivious, carrying the slayer away to safety.

   The newcomer looked after it with his eyes narrowed. “Another day, then, slayer. Another day.”

   He looked down at his audience and took a new stance, smiling down at them. Then, uninjured, unruffled by his fight, he jumped down the single story and landed catlike on his feet, grinning and cocksure. “Well, that was a bit of a let down,” he said to the awestruck fledges. “She wasn’t so tough. I’ll get her some other time.”

   One of the older vampires, one of the Master’s minions before the Dark Dawning of his release, came pushing through the other fledges, shoving them right and left as they stared up at him with awe. “And who the hell are you?” he asked.

   The newcomer smiled evilly. “I know who I am, mate. I think you’re the one who’s still finding himself. Nice setup you got here.” Then he laughed. “Though you’ve got that slayer problem. You know what I find works real well with slayers? Killing them.”

   “Oh, really?”

   The newcomer chuckled. “Yeah, I did a couple slayers in my time. Don’t like to brag.” Then he laughed outright. “Waste of time with you lot. You’re probably all bragging about slaughtering... kittens.” He grabbed one out of the hand of the nearest fledge and sneered at it. He looked at the fledgeling with contempt, and threw the hapless little creature behind him, where it landed with a yowl, tried to scamper away, ran up against the Master’s field, yowled again, and then fled down the alley. The fledge looked mournfully after his escaped treat, but he wasn’t about to run after it with the powerful warrior scathingly judging his food choices. “I’m moving in. About time someone with proper balls showed you buggers what was what.”

   “You’ll have to ask the Master about that, newbie,” said the minion. “If he doesn’t want you in his territory, you’d better watch out. He’ll take you out sure as look at you.”

   “Oh, right, SunnyD’s his little home turf. Take me to see Gramps then. It’s about time for a family reunion. Oh, didn’t I say? Name of Spike.” He grinned broad. “The prodigal son’s come home.”

 

***

  
  


   “Holy shit, that guy can fight!” Faith said, dragging herself out of the corn. “There were a couple moments in there where I really thought he meant it.”

   “You acted the whole thing well,” Buffy said. She’d been watching from inside a building across the street. “You looked really scared.”

   “I wasn’t acting. I felt about ready to shit my pants,” Faith said. “I wouldn’t have been so scared if I’d known I could fight back, but I knew I had to lose, and... what if he wasn’t faking?”

   “You spent all day choreographing that fight,” Buffy said. “Did he move out of pattern?”

   “No, but... god, his eyes, B. When he turns that shit on....”

   “Spike knows how to be dangerous,” Angel said, jumping out of the truck. He’d driven it himself, since he wanted to be on the scene in case the whole thing went south. He’d taken Faith halfway around town and around in circles before finally heading back to the school to let her off. He didn’t quite dare stop the truck in case any of the onlookers had decided to follow, hoping to pick off an injured slayer. “And that’s very, very real.”

   Faith was itchy from the fight, checking the injuries which had been planned for. They weren’t fake — Spike had said the scent would be a sure giveaway, and they couldn’t afford that — but they were superficial. The bite on her neck was toward the back, on a knot of muscle far from the veins. The other injury was on her left arm, a scratch from the stake, which Faith had actually done herself while Spike punched the air beside her head, pretending to be pummeling her, the view shielded by his coat.

   “Is there a Faith in your world, and are him and her friends?” Faith asked. “Please say yes.”

   Buffy made an odd face. “Well, they haven’t killed each other yet.”

   “Oh, god, he hates me, doesn’t he.”

   “He did once say that if I said the word, he’d make her a footnote in history,” Buffy confessed. “But for the most part we’re all on the same side.”

   “I guess it’s hard for her to forgive that he used to be evil,” Faith said.

   “Actually, it’s harder for him to forgive that she was.”

   Faith looked up.

   “Long story. You two are friends, though,” she said, indicating Faith and Angel. “Pretty close, actually.”

   The two eyed each other, and then looked away. Buffy noticed a tension there that had been unaddressed, probably for months now.

   “That was some rescue,” Faith said, rather than address that. “Smart plan, B, with the truck carrying me away all injured and tragic. How’d you come up with that?”

   “You don’t really want to know,” Buffy said, turning away.  

   They headed back into the library, where Willow was working with Ms. Calendar on her laptop. “How did the mission go?” she asked.

   “No hitches. Everything’s set for the next phase in Operation Dig.”

   “What was this super secret mission, anyway?” Xander asked. He was xeroxing Homecoming campaign posters for Cordelia on the library copier, something Snyder had expressly forbidden Cordelia to do, but he’d gone home for the night.

   “Spike’s handling it,” Buffy said. “Are all the inconsistencies in my file fixed?”

   “For the school they are,” Willow said. “But I’m afraid the social security office is a little harder to hack. You’ll get caught out at tax time for impersonation or something.”

   “I’m hoping to be out of here before April. I like my office, though. It’s nicer than the one my last principal gave me.”

   “It was Platt’s,” Ms. Calendar said.

   It had been long enough ago, Buffy hadn’t distinctly remembered Platt’s office. She felt a little bad about that. Part of her instinct as a slayer was to feel that she should save everyone. Which meant everyone who died of supernatural causes, even if she couldn’t have done anything to stop it, felt like all her fault. This was even less her fault, since it wasn’t even her universe. But Platt’s death had always felt like something she should have prevented.

   “And... done!” Xander said. “One hundred copies of Vote Cordelia.” He held up the xerox for Buffy to look at.

   “Couldn’t Cordy have done that herself?”

   “Well, she wanted me to. And where Cordy goes... apparently I must follow.” He shook his head. “Sometimes I wonder if it’s worth all this. I didn’t have to do this stuff last year, we weren’t dating yet.”

   “Yeah, how did you two get together?” Buffy asked.

   “Attack on Kendra around Career Day,” Xander said. “Drusilla had called in this really nasty Order of Terrifying.”

   “Taraka?”

   “That’s the one,” Xander said. “We got trapped, it was kinda intense. We’ve been on and off ever since.”

   Willow’s eyes narrowed as she looked at her laptop. Clearly she thought they should have been  _ off _ more regularly than they were  _ on. _

   Buffy was concerned. That was suspiciously like her own world, again. “I know a story like that. Too much like that. That means there’s probably going to be a lot of parallels between here and there, time and eventwise. It’s not just birth and death, this whole year is probably still on a similar schedule, even with the Master messing up the works. Giles? Do you have a calendar I can mark up?”

   Giles dug one out, as Buffy found herself thinking that Spike would just have pointed at Jenny, with a smirk. God... she missed him already.

   She sat down with the calendar and tried to remember what happened when, and where. Homecoming was coming up.... That was Slayerfest ‘98, so she was a bit worried about the dance. Homecoming here, though, apparently happened Saturday in the afternoon, and officially ended before city curfew. 

   “It’s too dangerous to have a party in a public place these days,” Xander said when Buffy asked. “Unless it’s before sunset.”

   “There are a bunch of after-hours parties, by invitation only,” Willow said. “Here’s the one Cordy’s hosting. All the Scoobies got one.”

   Buffy looked at the invitation. It was very specific, and had a caveat which Buffy thought particularly appropriate. The invitation read, after Homecoming party, Willow Rosenberg, time, date, normal things, including, “Communal crash space until dawn.” Then at the end it read, “Invitation valid only through the duration of party, and only if recipient is still human at that time.”

   “Nice,” Buffy said.

   “I’m sure Cordy will give you one, if you ask,” Willow said. “I mean, I know you’re not a student, but....”

   “That’s okay,” Buffy said. “Is Faith invited?”

   “She’s technically a student,” Willow said. “But she’s failing all her grades.”

   “I was legally emancipated by my last watcher,” Faith said. “Besides, I’ll be eighteen this year.”

   “Well, in my universe, someone decided Homecoming was a chance to kill the slayer,” Buffy said. “And if things are as similar as they keep having been, something like that might happen here. So keep an eye out Saturday.”

   “Gottcha,” Faith said. “Mr. Pointy on standby.”

   Buffy looked up. “You have a Mr. Pointy?”

   “Kendra,” Angel said softly. “She gave it to me as she died. Said... to pass it on.”

   Buffy cringed. God, this was harsh. Okay, after homecoming was when Ethan Rayne had done that thing with the band candy. “Are there any new candy manufacturing plants in town?” she asked.

   “No, why?”

   “We need to keep an eye open for suspicious chocolate in a week or so. That was something that happened in my universe. If that happens here, then we’ll know the mayor is definitely up to the same tricks, and we should accelerate taking him out. Spike should be showing up in....” She swallowed. Nope, that wouldn’t happen here. Still. “Is there still a magic store open in this town?”

   “A couple of booths,” Willow said. “Most don’t dare stay open, but the Black Market is still around.”

   “Uh....”

   “Don’t worry. I never go there at night.”

   The Black Market was a very dark store, and carried the kinds of black magic items Giles would never consider carrying in the Magic Box. And Willow was claiming she went there regularly. Oh, shit. This was spiraling out of control very fast here. They’d have Dark Willow looming out of the woodwork by the end of next year if she didn’t do something soon.

   Buffy was so distracted by that she forgot about the incipient breakup Xander would be having with Cordelia, and she ended up jumping straight to the next thing she remembered. “Something strange might happen around Christmas. Angel? If you start having bad dreams or weird visions, you tell me, okay? Promise?”

   “What might happen?”

   “Well, nothing, since it was all sort of based around something that didn’t happen here, but something happened in my world, so I’m a little worried.”

   “What happened?”

   Buffy didn’t want to get into all of it. “It snowed.”

   “In California?” Giles asked.

   “Yeah. After that....” She started making more notes on the calendar. “If two children are found dead around... this time, they’re demony things, not real kids, and they’re trying to wreak havoc. We’ll have to nip that fast. That’s my birthday... but we’re not going to let the watchers play that Cruciamentum shit with Faith, so that’s probably safe. Your birthday’s a few weeks after mine, right? Okay, what else.... If we nip the Sisterhood of the Jhe before they try to open the hellmouth, that should help. They might try to pull that off in the demon district though. Angel? You’ll have to stay on the ball over there. After that... god, I hope I’m gone after that. I don’t know about all of it. Tucker plans to unleash hellhounds on the students at Prom, so we should probably do something before that happens.”

   “Tucker?” Willow asked. “Andrew’s brother?”

   Buffy looked up. “You know him?”

   “He’s in the magic club.”

   “Well, I guess I’ll have him brought in to see the guidance counselor on Monday,” Buffy said. “I don’t know. I’m drawing a blank now, this was all more than half a decade ago.” She shoved the calendar across the table. She didn’t know why she was feeling so tired.

   Yes she did. She missed Spike. She had to take her mind off it.

   “I’m gonna go,” she said. “Is there any place in this town that’s open after sunset that isn’t run by demons?”

   “There’s the CostPro,” Faith said. “It only lets in members, and its membership cards have started having that same proviso that Faith’s invite did — only if you’re human. Which means those who get turned aren’t invited.”

   “Good. I need some decent clothes.” The CostPro wasn’t likely to have anything particularly fashionable, but it would have a little bit more than the 24/7. “Of course, I’m broke,” she added, looking innocently up at Giles.

   As she’d half been hoping, guilt and nostalgia worked on the watcher. “Would you like me to take you there?” he asked. “I could buy you some more clothing, so you don’t look quite so much like a refugee.”

   “Gee... thanks.”

   “I... didn’t mean it like that,” Giles said, but Buffy knew her outfit was still mussed and stained from her literally earth-shattering arrival. 

   “That would be really nice.” 

   She got into Giles’s familiar old Citroën, and Buffy noticed there were semi-opaque crosses painted on each of the windows. She’d been noticing that on most of the cars in Sunnydale. “The priests will bless vehicles upon purchase, or request,” Giles said when she paused to examine them. “It makes them safe from vampires. Not private-home safe, but they burn when touched. It would take a  _ very _ determined vampire to break through and get hold of anyone.”

   “That’s fantastic,” Buffy said. She distinctly remembered several incidents in her past where it would have been very nice to have been more protected by a car than she had been.

   As they drove, they discussed Buffy’s idea for making the school “private” at least as far as vampires were concerned. “I think we could only make it work if someone human was living there,” Giles said. “The question is finding a volunteer. At first I was considering asking the custodian, and then I realized, there actually is a growing foster program these days for orphaned students. Since they’re already living in an institutional group home setting, it would make sense to offer one or two of the empty school rooms for use as a dorm. They’d have the cafeteria available for meals, the gymnasium for after-hours recreation. I’m sure the group home supervisors would be open to the concept, since they’re getting overcrowded. Keep the elementary students in the group home and move the teenagers here. The question is getting Snyder to agree to such a thing.”

   “Don’t ask him to agree,” Buffy said. “Telling him that the school-board decided by fiat and then hacking the paperwork worked for getting my job. It should work for this too.”

   “I’ll talk to Jenny,” Giles said. “If she’s been able to get you into the system, and even get you a paycheck, this does sound like a workable plan.”

   “Yeah, a paycheck is... really nice.” She regarded Giles. “Giles? Um. Don’t take this the wrong way. But how are you financially?”

   “I’m more than healthy,” he said. “I am paid as the school librarian as well as by the Watcher’s Council.”

   “Yeah, I know. Um. How about Faith?”

   “What do you mean?”

   “Are you giving her a salary?”

   Giles looked confused. “No.”

   “You really should be.”

   “No, I should not,” Giles said distinctly. “The watchers are the ones who are compensated for their labor. The Slayer is Chosen. It is their destined path, and not a... a career.”

   “Yeah, and the watchers get the money, I get that,” Buffy said. “But the system also arranged for most slayers to live with their watchers, like Kendra did. And most slayers are underage, so the watchers are taking care of them, like a parent. But you’re not living with Faith, and if she’s been emancipated, that means she’s a free agent. Which means she needs to come up with room and board, clothes, and anything else she might want to buy, all without any compensation at all.”

   “She hasn’t complained.”

   “And if you look at the number of people who have screwed her over in her life, you wouldn’t be surprised by this,” Buffy snapped. She needed to calm down. Her own Giles had apologized for this years ago, but it had taken him a long time to see what he had done. Buffy still cringed every single time she saw anything that reminded her of Doublemeat Burgers. “Do the watchers with active potentials or slayers under their care get more compensation than just... watchers on call?”

   Giles stared gravely at the road.

   “Do they?”

   “You must already know this, or you wouldn’t be asking.” He glanced at her. “Is there a reason you’re bringing this up?”

   “Yeah,” Buffy said evenly. “After realizing you’d been screwing me over for more than seven years, I got kinda pissed off at you. It took us a long time to stop hating each other.”

   Giles looked at her again, and then forced his eyes back to the road. “Am I still your watcher in your universe?”

   “There are no watchers in my universe,” Buffy said. “Not anymore. But we’re friends again, finally.”

   “There was a time we weren’t?”

   “Yes,” Buffy said. “I know you love me, Giles. Or at least, I know you loved  _ her _ , as your slayer. But a sixteen year old kid is different from a grown woman, and lies... pile up. You’re not perfect, and I get that. But you should be paying Faith a salary. If that makes you uncomfortable, you should pay all rent, all food, give her a clothes budget, and tell her she can come to you for pocket money. Just like you would if she was your daughter. I know she’s not your daughter, but she’s your slayer. And you’re getting the money that’s meant for her.”

   Giles stared at the road, his hands gripping the steering wheel of his old Citroën. “I... take it this is something we had words over? In your universe?”

   “Only after it didn’t matter anymore,” Buffy said. “I’d like that not to happen with Faith. Also, don’t lie to her. Ever. The Cruciamentum isn’t just dangerous, it destroys faith in the watcher. Never go behind her back. And never, ever, try to kill any of her friends without telling her.”

   “I would never do that!” Giles suddenly snapped.

   “In three months you were planning on poisoning her and setting her without powers in front of a killing machine,” Buffy said. “When you were a young man you killed someone, and you still haven’t gone to jail or anything for that. The truth is, Giles, you know what you’re capable of, and I can respect that. But Faith needs someone she can trust implicitly, and you need to be that. That means honesty. Promise me you’ll think about it.”

   Giles said nothing. Buffy knew, the whole salary thing hadn’t even occurred to him for years in her own time, not until long after the council was dissolved and Buffy no longer had to deal with mortgage payments, anyway. This Giles hadn’t dealt with Glory. He hadn’t killed Ben in cold blood. He hadn’t had to consider killing Dawn. He hadn’t had to deal with Buffy dying in the way she had, an event which had hardened the watcher considerably. He wasn’t yet the man she had been so angry at after the fall of Sunnydale.

   She hoped he never had to become him.

   “I don’t like Faith,” he said suddenly. Buffy looked up. “She offensive, she’s crass, she’s... disgusting.” He glanced at her. “She’s not like you.”

   “She is, actually,” Buffy said. “We’re very alike. I’m a lot harder and more dangerous than you ever saw when I was young. The thing about Faith is, she’s not sixteen and raised by a rich father in LA. She’s an inner city Boston kid, who had to run on her own a lot. She needs a mentor.”

   “She doesn’t want  _ me _ in that role.”

   “Yes, she does. She doesn’t want to admit it, that’s all.” 

   Giles lowered his head, his jaw tight. 

   “Will you at least think about it? How is she supposed to get stuff or even eat without a stipend? Stealing? She’s trapped in a  _ want, take, have _ mentality the way things are now. She’s got no choice, there’s things she needs, and she has  _ no _ income. She can’t work, she’s too busy already, people  _ need _ her to keep fighting, and she needs to sleep sometime. She’s supposed to be a hero, and she’s trapped into being a criminal. What’s that doing to her psychologically? She’s already pretty frail there. It’s easy to go dark when your whole job is to kill. And you’re the one putting her in that position.”

  “It’s not my doing!” Giles snapped.

  “My mom had money,” Buffy said. “I was safe. I didn’t have to steal to get by, and I didn’t have to beg to sleep on someone’s couch. And truthfully, it still wasn’t right then, either.”

  Giles’ grim look had gone pale. There was a slight tremble to his stiff face. “I’ll arrange for a salary,” he said. “I’ll think about the rest of it.”

   “Thanks.”

   There was an awkward silence. “I’m sorry... for whatever he did. Your Giles.”

   “He is too,” Buffy said. “We’re all right.” 

   Giles didn’t look like he was satisfied. He stopped the car in the parking lot of the CostPro, an underground affair with CUSTOMERS ONLY – ALL OTHERS ARE TRESPASSING splashed on it in reflective paint, which Buffy figured kept the vampires out. Buffy opened the car door and looked back when she realized Giles wasn’t moving.

   “Giles?”

   “I’m sorry.”

   “It’s okay.”

   “No,” he said, staring into space. “I’m sorry I failed you. I’m sorry I let you....” Tears were leaking from the corners of his eyes, even though he kept his face stiff. “You were so gifted, Buffy, I couldn’t believe... you would be taken so quickly, I... I’m sorry....”

   Buffy reached out and touched his hand. “Hey. I knew what I was doing. I went off that night to face the Master, expecting to die. I didn’t blame you.”

   “I....”

   “It wasn’t your fault, Giles. You’re the best watcher I could possibly have had.”

   He sobbed in earnest this time, and looked away, British stiff-upper-lip not wanting to admit to the emotion.

   “Come on. Buy me four pairs of jeans, and we’ll call it even,” she said, giving him something to move on with.

   He chuckled, and opened the car door. Buffy walked very slowly across the parking lot, giving him time to compose himself. By the time he caught up with her at the elevator, it was clear that he had.

   Buffy pressed the button for the ground floor, glad that  _ that _ conversation was out of the way. She’d had more than enough emotionally fraught events for one night.

   Then she stepped out of the elevator, into the brightly lit lobby of the CostPro, and ran straight into her mother.

 


	8. Chapter 8

 

   “William the Bloody.”

   Spike eyed the Master with what he hoped was cordial disdain. He’d never had to try and judge his reactions around the bugger before. The Master had been fond of Darla. Darla had grown fond of Drusilla, despite the insanity. Drusilla had loved Spike, in her mad way. That was Spike’s only link to the Master, his vampire family. He’d only met the creature twice in his own world, both times around the turn of the century, both at Darla’s request, both times only because it was what Dru wanted him to do.

   “You killed yourself a slayer, my pretty Spike,” Dru had said. “You should tell, and tell, and tell!”

   And he’d listened to her. He’d told and told, to Darla, and to the Master, and to the rest of the Master’s disciples. And when the Master had been suitably impressed by the Slayer of Slayers, he had told Spike he was worthy of being one of his followers... and Spike had told him to bugger off, and gone out for a drink until Darla and Dru were done playing chanty religious games and had come back up from under the ground.

   The Master was living now in an opulent chamber created in the sewer passages under the Bronze. The Bronze itself had become a playpen, where human beings were tortured and fed from, raped and abused, in every way possible. The soul inside Spike screamed in rage at where it found itself. The demon within him... surprised him by being bored. He’d been half afraid it would find all this exciting, since he still had bloodlust and evil tendencies. But his demonic nature was disinterested. It had done all this in its time. It enjoyed battle. Violence was one thing. Mere torture and screaming had limited appeal.

   “You know I prefer Spike, Gramps,” Spike said, taking a casual knee and then bouncing back up again.

   “Yes. It sounded insane when you were young,” the Master said. “I often wondered if Drusilla’s affliction had been transferred, to some extent, during your Transformation to Darkness.”

   Spike shrugged. “Or some of her premonitions,” he said. “After all, name went over big in the eighties.”

   “That was some time ago, they tell me,” the Master said. “My children all insist that time marches on. And apparently it does. Makes changes. Difficulties.” He sniffed at Spike as if he’d caught a whiff of dung. “You... have a soul.”

   “Oh.” Spike rolled his eyes, as if someone had noticed a wart on his nose. “Didn’t I have that last time I saw you?”

   “No,” the Master said, eyeing him suspiciously. “You were still glorying in the death of the Slayer in China. You were a warrior then. You were not... tainted. Like Angelus. The traitor.”

   “How is old Angelus, these days?” Spike said.

   “Causing trouble, like he always was,” the Master said. “You haven’t answered my question.”

   “That’s ‘cause you didn’t ask, Gramps,” Spike said. “Yeah, those curse happy buggers that got Angelus finally cottoned on to yours truly taking out their queen. Got an ugly soul tossed at me. You know what I said?”

   The Master raised one wrinkled eyebrow.

   “Bugger it. You’re gonna give me a soul? It’ll be the blackest bloody soul in the history of the bloody world.” Spike grinned. “Set about seeing to it ever since. Have a bit of a thing about it, to be honest. Not letting it get me. Killed my second slayer, and it never got in the way there. Did Dru never mention it, then?” He looked around him, as if expecting Dru to pop out from one of the sewer tunnels. “Where is my dark goddess, anyroad? Heard she had settled here.”

   “Drusilla.”

   “Yeah, she knows we’ll always meet up again. We got split up in Prague. Happened before, those Nazi’s caught me at that free virgin blood party, and it took us a good eight months to find each other again. Knew she’d come to family, when all else failed.” He strode up to the Master and leaned casually on the edge of his throne. “So. Where is she?” He leaned in a bit more conspiratorially. “She didn’t pick up with some other bloke, did she? ‘Cause I can take him out, first thing.”

   The Master’s angry face turned grave with evil sorrow. “Ah, Drusilla. My most troubled child. Her prowess as a seer could not extend to her own fate. Angelus... he was meant to be my Right Hand! And yet... to have lost him... when it would seem... a soul need not mean corruption away from evil.” The Master shook his head. “First he dared to turn my sweet favorite Darla to dust. His own sire! And then... Drusilla.... Such a tragedy.”

   Spike had heard Angel had taken care of Drusilla in this universe, so his surprise had to be feigned. But it was easy enough to do. Spike had very confused emotions about Drusilla, and he used them all here, to, he hoped, great melodramatic effect. (The Master was a sucker for melodrama.) “You’re telling me she’s off with Angelus? Or...?”

   “Lost to us,” the Master said. “My last remaining link to my Darla’s sweet bloodline....” He eyed Spike again. “Or so I’d thought....”

   “Dru... she’s gone, then?” Spike’s fist clenched. “And at the hands of  _ Angel? _ ” He let the emotion build, channeled it into something tangible, and roared with fury. He grabbed hold of one of the Master’s gilded chairs, throwing it across the room. It hit a fledge who was bowing with supplication at the edge of the chamber, and Spike roared again.  _ “Nooo!” _

   “Indeed,” the Master said. “I was under the impression that you yourself were no longer in this world, Spike. I had believed to have lost all of Darla’s worthy descendants....”

   Spike fell to his knees again, panting with very real, but oddly placed, grief for his sire and his lost love. Then he looked up, his eyes yellow, fury smoldering from him. “Vengeance,” he muttered. “I must have vengeance.”

   The Master smiled, as Spike had known he would. “Vengeance is a very worthy goal,” he said. “But will be more difficult than one would suppose. Angelus hasn’t merely turned against us. He has joined forces with the Slayer, of all benevolent creatures. He stands by her, fights beside her, lives, above ground, with her in his abode.” The Master shook his head. “Disgusting.”

   “You’re telling me Angel has joined up with the Slayer?” He jumped to his feet. “How could he do that? How could he choose the Slayer over my sweet dark angel? How have they not been destroyed?”

   The truth was, Spike was looking for a way to just destroy the Master real quick. He knew such a thing wouldn’t be easy, since the bugger didn’t sleep anymore, had enthralling powers that could extend as far as his voice could reach, and had hide tougher than bloody concrete. But more importantly, this audience was not in private. At least seven minions circled the room, at least three of which were half as old as Spike, at least two having been turned by the Master himself. It might be worth it to throw his own life away to take out the Master, but only if he could be sure he would actually do it. And there was no guarantee of that here. He doubted the Master was going to trust him implicitly. For one thing, he never had in his youth, and he hadn’t had a soul then. For another, the Master rarely trusted anyone. Proper vampires were always sparring and vying for dominance. The Master had become the Master by knowing that, and always surrounding himself with trusted soldiers. If one turned on him, the others would attack. That was just the way of it.

   Which was why they needed the scythe.

   “It’s been difficult,” the Master said. “There was a slayer who broke the rules, drew in other humans, made... disciples of her own. Those who have come after her have followed in her footsteps, fighting alongside others, cheating, drawing on the power of technology and unity rather than her own innate abilities. Really. Kids these days.” The Master shrugged. “Few of my warriors returned from battles with this slayer, or those who came after her. This latest affront, called Faith. She is elusive, cowardly. She kills my youngest children with impunity, but will not dare to face me.” He shook his head. “But we have not succeeded in killing her. The rules of our kind still apply. Sunlight still holds sway. Private dwellings are forbidden us. The trappings of religion are still anathema.” He sighed heavily. “It is a trouble.”

   “Well, I just fought your slayer, and I walked off without a scratch,” Spike said with contempt.

   The Master laughed. “Yes! So Reginald here tells me. It was quite the stirring tale! Shame she got away.”

   Spike shrugged. “I can do your slayer for you, I’d wager. But... I came to SunnyD for a reason, Gramps, I’ll have you know. I thought I’d be hunting it up with Drusilla, but... I guess... it’ll be her final legacy, then.”

   “What?”

   Spike came in close to the Master and knelt at his feet, which appeared to be supplication, but was really a conspiratorial huddle. “Dru told me of a weapon,” he said. “A weapon designed for slayers, to hunt and kill. And not just one slayer.  _ All _ slayers. If the Slayer is killed with this weapon, no new Slayer would be called. There would be no more of that line. Ever.”

   “No more slayers?” The Master was intrigued. “How have you heard of this?”

   “Drusilla saw it, in a vision, it came to her again and again. She told me of it years ago, but claimed it wasn’t time to unearth it yet. She said it was buried in a vineyard, a few miles from here.”

   The Master’s eyes grew wide. “Indeed?” he asked. 

   “Indeed, indeed,” Spike said. “I think the time to unearth it has come. I actually came up here to look for a few good bodies, might help me dig it out. Ach, but you have such a good set up,” he said, looking about. “No real need to change the status quo, no? I mean, you’re in here, slowly breeding yourselves into oblivion, with the slayer traipsing around about your perimeter like a game warden, picking you off one by one as you try to come out... sounds like a perfect situation to me.”

   “Do you dare mock me?” the Master asked.

   Spike grinned. “Yeah.”

   He rolled up onto the soles of his feet and straightened his coat about his shoulders. “What do you say, Gramps? You want in on my little venture? Or should I try to set myself up a rival nest outside town, see if I can’t get the local demons to think twice. Do we want a whole lot of ritual?” he asked the vampires of the chamber. “Or do we want a little fun around here?”

   There was a nervous but approving murmur from the vampires around him. Spike had already made an impression.

   The Master looked scornful, but slightly amused. “You always were a hothead, Spike. You mock your betters and you dismiss the righteous path of evil. But I must admit... your vision appeals to me. Go.” He gestured to the tunnel that led back up to the Bronze. “Play. Take refreshment. And then if you wish to accept volunteers for your dig, I would not be opposed. Take a half dozen.”

   “A dozen would be faster,” Spike pointed out.

   The Master laughed, his fangs glinting in the torchlight. “Take a score, if that would appease you!” he said. “Only do not trouble me with your modern ways.” He shook his head and leaned back indulgently on his throne. “There’s only so much an old man can take.”

***

   “I don’t think I can take much more of this,” Joyce was saying. “So you’re not my Buffy. But you  _ are _ Buffy. And you are my daughter, but you’re not. You were, and you are, this… this  _ slayer _ person. And not only did you die, you  _ knew _ you were going to die? And you didn’t tell me?”

   “I thought... or... she thought... she could take the Master down with her,” Buffy said. They were sitting down in the coffee shop/crappy pizza/is-that-really-a-hotdog? cafeteria section in the corner of the CostPro, which was loud and annoying and brightly lit and absolutely the worst place to have this kind of intimate conversation, but was the only option unless they wanted to leave. And given the amount of distrust, grief, and confusion among the three of them, none of them dared leave the safety of the CostPro.

   The tears had dried now, for the most part, after mother and daughter had wrapped their arms around each other and sank to their mutual knees in grief and joy. Buffy knew it was false joy. The Buffy who was supposed to live here was still dead. Her own Joyce was still dead. And yet, somehow, that didn’t seem to matter just now.

   She couldn’t stop touching her mother’s hand, and Joyce didn’t seem to mind that any, either. They each had a cup of okay-if-you-insist-on-calling-this-cheap-stuff-hazelnut coffee, and Giles had lowered himself to order an extremely strong cup of yeah-no-that’s-not-really-tea. He’d demanded two teabags for it and kept grimacing whenever he raised it to his lips, but he kept his hands wrapped around the paper cup as if it were his lifeline.

   “You knew?” Joyce said, turning her attention to Giles. “You knew that my daughter was doing all of these dangerous things? And you let me stand in the dark? All this time?”

   “It was vital that we keep her identity a secret,” Giles said. “That has been the rule, since time immemorial, that the slayer maintains discretion—”

   “Forget discretion!” Joyce said. “This was my daughter!”

   “And I grieved for her as much as you have,” Giles said. “I told you as much at the memorial—”

   “She was already dead!” Joyce demanded. “You let me think she was just a victim, and you were only her school librarian. And now I find out you were something called a  _ watcher,  _ and she had been battling monsters and saving the world? My daughter was a... a soldier.”

   “A lone warrior, Mom,” Buffy said. “Soldiers follow orders. I was... something a little different.”

   “A detective, a fighter, an athlete, and a hero!” Joyce said with something that sounded suspiciously like reverence. “And I thought you were just... troubled.”

   “And you truly had no intimation the entire time?” Giles asked.

   “None,” Joyce said. “None! And I am... furious that you would let me continue that way!” Her voice was hard, but low, as she glared at Giles.

   “I told you, Mom. You wouldn’t listen.”

   “You told me nothing of the kind,” Joyce insisted. “This is the first I’ve heard of any of it. The first time I heard about vampires at all was when the Mayor announced that the neighborhood around the Bronze was closing. Until that moment I hadn’t even realized what it was that had bitten your neck and... killed you.”

   “So... I didn’t try to tell you when I was fifteen?” Buffy asked. “You didn’t... take me to a psych ward and leave me there until I stopped talking about it?”

   “What? No! Of course I didn’t! You’re my only child, Buffy. Do you really think that I would turn on you like that?”

   Buffy stared at her mother, and suddenly wondered if she was right. Yes, this was a different universe, but what if that had never happened at all? Not even in her own world? Her own memory told her that she’d been found out, by Dawn, sneaking in one night covered in blood. She had then told her parents about the vampires, and her little sister was the only member of her family who had believed her. Her parents had been worried about having that kind of influence around their youngest, and had sent Buffy to a psych ward. During one visit, Dawn had asked why she couldn’t just stop talking about the vampires and the magic, just not mention it, and then they could all live together as a family again. Buffy had listened, and was released to her parents, with her sister as her only confidant at home.

   Had the monks implanted that memory of her parents’ rejection of the magic and slayer stuff to forge a stronger bond between her and Dawn? Now that she looked at her mother, now that she thought back on that event, now that she considered the other false memories of Dawn which had been implanted in her history, she was suddenly convinced it had never happened.

   Damn monks.

   “I guess you wouldn’t,” Buffy said, gripping her mother’s hand more tightly.

   “Not that I would have been pleased to see you making this as a life choice,” Joyce added. “I would have been terrified. And rightly so!” She was crying again.

   “I’m sorry, Mom,” Buffy said. “I really... I had no choice. The path was chosen for me, and I....” She trailed off.

   “I don’t understand.”

   “Giles?”

   “I....” Giles looked helpless. “I really don’t have the resources to get into this at the moment. If you would care for more information on the history of the slayers, I can provide you with... limited—”

   “No limited,” Buffy said. “You’ll give her everything she needs to know.”

   “Buffy—”

   “No! Everything. My mom knew everything in my universe, and all it did was help her. She could understand, and she could try to face it. It wasn’t fair to keep that from her. I only managed it for two years, after that I let her know everything. And so did you,” Buffy added. “It was better for everyone that she knew the truth.”

   “It will put her in danger.”

   “Who isn’t in danger, in this world?” Joyce announced, gesturing wildly at the brightly lit, by-invitation-only box store, which was the only safe place in the entire town, and only because several of the employees had moved into apartments in the back, technically making the place their private residence.

   “Mom was safer knowing,” Buffy said. “What finally got her in the end wasn’t monsters.”

   Both Joyce and Giles stared at her in sudden horror, while a growing sense of excitement slowly filled Buffy. “Mom? Mom, you need to go to the hospital.”

   “Excuse me?”

   “This is a different universe, but so much has been so similar, you need to go get an MRI or... or a CAT scan or something. You probably have a brain tumor.”

   “What? What?” Joyce looked confused, but Buffy didn’t care. She was too elated by the idea of having a second chance. No, it wasn’t quite the same. When she got back to her universe, her mother would still be gone, just like this Buffy here was gone. But maybe that was the trade off. If destiny was in play, maybe in this universe it was Buffy who died and Joyce who would live.

   “Oh, god, maybe I can save you,” Buffy whispered.

   Joyce’s face flattened out in awed realization. “Oh, god. That means you didn’t.”

   They stared at each other for a long, traumatized moment, and then they hugged again, fiercely, hungrily. And they were both crying again.

***

  
  


   They were both gasping. “I... I didn’t mean that to....”

   “I-I know,” Willow stammered, looking up into Xander’s face.

   “I mean, you’re... but I’m... Cordelia and I....”

   “I know,” Willow said. “But I... I mean... you and I have....”

   “But we haven’t!”

   But they had. The kiss had been potent, powerful, magical, and Willow’s knees were shaking. She was having a very hard time thinking this was anything wrong at all. It was everything she’d ever wanted, exactly what she’d hungered for, the desire she’d been nursing since she was in the fifth grade, for Xander to just look at her, see her for once as a real girl, and kiss her.

   But it had happened too late. He was dating Cordelia, claimed he loved Cordelia. And Cordelia claimed she loved him. (While simultaneously mocking him to her other, popular friends when he wasn’t looking....)

   “No, no, you’re right,” Willow said. “You shouldn’t. It’s just....”

   “But... uh… I know  _ you _ always wanted to....”

   “How did you know that?”

   Xander raised an eyebrow. “You weren’t exactly keeping it a secret.”

   “Well... not very well, I guess,” Willow said, looking down.

   “I... I get it. Um. I mean. We’re both young, and... and... it’s the clothes!” he suddenly announced.

   “What?”

   “Formalwear!” They’d been trying on their clothing in preparation for the dance. “It does things to your brain.”

   “You’re right. The clothes. We can...”

   “Yeah. Lets.”

   “Okay.” They were almost kissing again. Xander pulled away. “Um... um, yeah.”

   And Willow decided she herself didn’t have anything to lose, and kissed him again, hard. It was completely opposed to what she thought of as her personality, but she didn’t care. She loved Xander. She’d always loved Xander. And Cordelia didn’t even respect him.

   Xander finally stopped the kiss, but he looked flustered. “Right. No. Cordelia. I can’t just... we’re friends, Will. And... and Cordy...!”

   “But me?” she said.

   Xander looked incredibly torn. “We gotta get out of these clothes,” he said. Then he blanched. “I didn’t mean! Uh... you know what?” He grabbed his own clothes. “I’m... I’ll change at home.”     

   And Willow was left staring after her best friend, and the love of her life, and couldn’t think of a single reason why he should prefer to be with Cordelia.

 


	9. Chapter 9

 

   “So, in her universe, her mom’s dead?” Faith asked. “That’s gotta be harsh.”

   “Yeah,” Angel said. “Giles said they just huddled around that table, talking, until the store closed.” He sighed. “I would have liked to have been there.”

   “You barely knew Buffy’s mom.”

   “I know, but... I would have liked to,” Angel said. 

   He gazed wistfully out the frosted window, at the sunlit world he did not get to walk in. Faith wondered if he was imagining dancing with the mother of the bride at the white wedding he’d been dreaming about since before Buffy kicked it. She’d seen his sketch books. He’d put Buffy in wedding dresses — or shit that looked like wedding dresses, anyway — a lot. Buffy was in every possible still pose, with every possible expression, in more outfits than Faith could have imagined. She often wondered if Angel had missed his calling as fashion designer by being drawn to the dark side.

   The thing about those sketch books was, Buffy didn’t look much like the Buffy Faith was coming to know. That Buffy’s face was still young, round cheeked and soft lipped, with eyes that exuded almost Bambi-like innocence. The Buffy Faith knew was a hardened warrior, and you could see it in every line of her. Also, something she hadn’t been able to see in Angel’s sketches, was that Buffy was constantly animated. The only times Faith had seen her go still was when someone had said something that bugged her.

   Though come to think of it, she was awful still whenever Angel was in the room.

   Faith wasn’t sure what that meant for the Great Eternal True Love that Angel had always gone on about. But she was pretty sure that the gorgeous hunk of Billy Idol wannabe boyfriend had been putting a pretty severe kink in Angel’s plans. And Spike was out of the picture now, which was probably going to be a bad scene.

   Faith knew Angel. They’d been sharing that house for over four months. When Angel wanted something, he went for it. He could be shockingly clueless, brood like a fucking hen, and was occasionally boyishly sheepish if he made a social faux-pas, but he was also a skilled hunter, and a scholar of human nature. If what he wanted was the hunt, he could target and acquire. She’d seen him do it before. And she could see something of the same look in his eyes when he thought about _ this _ Buffy, who wasn’t his, but was probably the next best thing. No doubt he was thinking this was how destiny would play out — his Buffy would die, her Angel would die, and then they would find each other touchingly in this new world....

   Yeah. That sounded like the kind of shit Angel liked. The guy was a stickler for cheesy romances.

   “You wouldn’t have thought much of  _ my _ mom,” Faith said. “I sure as hell don’t.”

   Angel had disappeared into his own thoughts, but he looked back at Faith at that. “Yeah. Well. That’s not really the point. It’s just important that the person closest to her is able to share... I mean....”

   Faith laughed. “Oh, you really got it bad.” She pushed past Angel with her cheesy-bagel breakfast and shoved it into the microwave. “I don’t think she was thinking about you much at all when faced with basically the ghost of her dead mom.” She changed the subject. “Did you hear what Giles said about giving me a stipend?”

   “Yeah,” Angel said. “It... I don’t know. It seems wrong to accept money for saving people’s lives.”

   “You don’t have to eat,” Faith pointed out. She’d asked him before how he afforded blood, and he’d said something about savings and investments and that was it. Faith already knew he was cheap. She wondered sometimes if he had millions stashed away, and just didn’t want to admit it. Or if he had only a couple thou, and didn’t want to admit to being that broke, either. The truth was probably somewhere in the middle, but he had insisted he came from an era where you didn’t talk about wealth. Sometimes she wondered if what he really meant was, he came from an era when you didn’t talk about money in front of women.

   “Still. I hope you won’t let it go to your head.”

   “What. Worried the little lady will get too full of herself if she can fill her own belly?” she asked. She’d basically been living on Angel’s charity since her last watcher had died, and it irked her. Unlike her watcher, Angel had no responsibility over her at all, so everything Faith had beyond the weaponry Giles had provided was entirely out of the goodness of Angel’s heart. Except now she was going to have her own money.... “I’m gonna have to get a  _ bank account, _ ” she said with awe.

   Angel actually laughed at that. “That’s not quite the same as having won the lotto,” he said.

   “Still.” She grabbed Angel’s hands and pulled him away from the counter. “I can afford some new duds, maybe get a car. We could get a stereo.”

   Angel was impressed. “A stereo, huh?”

   “Hell, yeah! Listen to something other than your god damn gramophone.”

   “It’s a record player.” 

   “That plays wax cylinders,” Faith joked. She’d heard about something like that once, though she wasn’t actually sure that was the same as the gramophone. It didn’t matter. Angel seemed to find it funny. “I can finally teach you how to dance so you don’t look like a moron.”

   “Hey. I can....” He stopped. They both already knew he couldn’t dance.

   “Your taste just sucks. You can’t dance to Barry Manilow without looking like an idiot.”

   “Hey. It’s... it’s pretty,” Angel said, and Faith was sure he’d be blushing if he could have been.

   “Pretty lame! It’s  _ stuffy! _ You just gotta let go and  _ go  _ with it, you know? Like,  _ I'm a bitch, I'm a lover— _ ”

   “Faith!”

   Angel tried to pull away, but she wasn’t having it. She kept singing, dragging Angel along behind her. “ _ I'm a child, I'm a mother, I'm a sinner, I'm a saint. I do not feel ashamed! _ ” She undulated down his body at that, bending her knees as her shoulders wriggled provocatively. “ _ I’m your hell, I'm your dream, _ ” she went on, sliding her hands up his legs and torso, and tossed her head back. “ _ I'm nothing in between, you know you wouldn't want it any other way! _ ” She twirled around with him, and he actually let her, smiling in spite of himself at what he often called her  _ youthful enthusiasm. _

   Suddenly he stopped, going rigid under Faith’s hands, and stared at the staircase that led to the mansion’s sewer entrance. Faith glanced behind her, then relaxed, seeing it was only Spike. He didn’t look any the worse for the wear. There had been a big chance the Master was going to kill him outright, so him being there at all was good. 

   “Hey,” she said, her hands still all over Angel’s chest. “How’d it go?”

   “Master bought it,” Spike said bluntly. “I’m taking a shower.”

   He strode into the bathroom, and Angel took the opportunity to extricate himself from Faith’s grasp. Faith was left with a deep sense of frustration. It was hard enough getting Angel to loosen up, and these last three days had been next to impossible with Saint Buffy lurking around the mansion. Angel went to the other staircase, the one that led to the basement section that wasn’t connected to the sewers, but instead to the garage, and Spike and Buffy’s bedrooms. He peered down the stairs, as if expecting Buffy to be lurking there in the hallway, peering up. 

   “Did you know he was coming back so soon?” Angel asked.

   “You said B had planned on it,” Faith said. “I don’t think they had a schedule, just whenever he could get away.”

   “I thought he’d be gone longer,” he said, coming back to the living room area. “I thought... I thought we’d have more time.”

   “Time for what?” Faith asked.

   Angel looked troubled. “Nothing. Nothing. Just... is he coming back every morning?”

   “How should I know?” Faith snapped, annoyed now. “Ask him.”

   Angel only frowned. “I’m going to bed,” he said. “I don’t want to hear... anything.” He strode toward his bedroom.

   “Angel!” Faith reminded him. She pointed at the ceiling.

   “I know, I just... please,” he said.

   “Fine, I’ll take care of it,” Faith said, rolling her eyes.

   “Thanks.”

   He closed the door to his ground floor master bedroom, and a moment later Faith could hear he had started his goddamned record player, blasting out his goddamned ballet music as loud as it could bellow. She really had to get her own stereo. Then she could blast her music from upstairs, and he could blast his from downstairs, and they’d have a merry war of sound through the whole mansion. Sounded like fun. Might even wake the dead.

   She chuckled at the thought, and went to retrieve her bagel from the microwave. Everything else could wait until after breakfast.

***

 

   Buffy woke to the familiar feel of Spike sliding naked under the covers beside her. He snuggled up to her and silently put his head on her chest. She let her one hand hold his, while her other arm went around him, stroking his shower damp head.

   For a long time she just held him as he lay there, taking in slow, even breaths, drinking her in.

   It was at least ten minutes before she asked, “How was the mission?”

   “Master’s on board,” Spike said quietly. She could see his eyes were open, but he didn’t seem to be looking at anything. “I’ll be picking out minions tomorrow night. We’ll caravan out to the vineyard, and then... then we’ll probably find a way to hole up there while we work. I’ll have to figure out some way... to feed them.”

   That was going to be hellish. Buffy knew what he used to do would be to pick up some hapless victim and leave them chained up, a craft service table for his minions to snack on. He could not, in good conscience, do such a thing now.

   “I’ll have to choose carefully. A lot of them are curious about me, but a lot... some really hate the soul. They hate it, like it was painful to them. I don’t know... if they’re envious, or what. Maybe it’s just pure bigotry. Some... seem to think its funny. They’ll try to make fun of it, or me, behind my back. I have to be careful about that, I can’t be just a joke. I cracked a few heads about it already. Literally, in one case, he dusted.”

   Buffy didn’t ask if he’d meant for that to happen. Truthfully, it didn’t really matter.

   “They’re going to test me,” he said. “I can already tell. I had a few offers already, I was able to turn them down. Said I had the taste of the slayer in my mouth, and I wasn’t going to ruin it with their second-hand leftovers. They bought it. But they won’t buy that forever.”

   He closed his eyes. “I’ve not seen the feeding pens. There’s a few of them. They say the children have already....” he trailed off. “There aren’t any there right now,” he said instead. “But they’re starting a breeding project. They take the younger women and put them with a handful of... males. If they get pregnant they’re put in the breeding pens, for a while. If they don’t... they’re brought....” He trailed off again.

   “The Bronze is what they call a play pen,” he said. “It’s where you get to play. Choose out a toy and play. They have people chained up, and stretched out. There’s a lot of screaming. And they have a room, in the back, where....” He stopped again. “They call it the bedroom,” he said. Then he made a sound that was almost a laugh, but it was so tragic it made Buffy’s heart clench. “Did you know, you get numb to the screaming?” he asked. “I’d forgotten that. I actually forgot, I thought... ‘cause I didn’t have a soul, you know? But no. It’s just that it becomes background noise, and you can’t even hear it after a while. Not unless you’re looking....” He shook his head. “It’s not that you don’t care. It’s that you actually don’t even hear it.”

   There was really nothing to say to any of this. Even saying she loved him might cheapen what he was saying, or taint the phrase, or something. He let the truth of what he was doing fester silently between them for a long while.

   When she felt enough time had passed, Buffy let the subject move on. “I saw Mom last night.”

   Spike shifted his head and looked at her.

   “She looks good. We had to pretty much tell her everything.”

   “Everything?” he asked. “Me?”

   “You didn’t come up,” she said. “But the slayer stuff, and the other world, and... I’ll bring you up next time. She’s going to the hospital for tests, and she won’t let them deny them. She says she’ll pay out of pocket if the insurance refuses her.”

   “So, she’s gonna be okay?”

   “I think so. If we can catch the cancer this early, the surgery could go easier since there won’t be any brain damage, or maybe we can even just shrink it away completely, with chemo. Catching it early gives her the best chance. She might... might be just fine in this universe. I might be able to save her.”

   Spike gazed at her for a long moment. “Well,” he said. “That’s one.”

   Buffy didn’t let herself cringe, but she felt it. He longed to release every single one of those tortured people, and he couldn’t even show sympathy. The only way to save them was to pretend to be blind to them as long as possible.

   “What do you need?” she asked gently.

   Spike regarded her. Then, he reached up and took her hand, placing it over his throat. “Do it hard,” he said.

   Buffy squeezed tight, closing off everything, letting him turn the pain of what he had witnessed that night into something physical he could bleed off. She held him down until his eyes rolled up into his head, then tried to soothe him with tender kisses. He was still stiff and distant. He wasn’t done yet. 

   She left him on the bed and pulled out some extension cord she’d seen in a drawer. A moment later she had him tied to the bedposts. She whipped him as hard as he wanted, until he finally broke, and the tears came.

   Then she untied him, pulled him into her arms, and cradled him as the tears drained away. Eventually he fell asleep.

   She’d known it was going to be hell. The Master had made it so. Spike had known that as well as she did. This was the best way they had to be sure they’d be able to end it. She did not regret asking this of him. She was not sorry. She wasn’t.

   She had to keep telling herself that.

***    

   “So, what, you’re looking for SlayerFest, poisoned band candy, a couple of demon kids….” Spike was hitching his coat up around his shoulders as he spoke. Sunset was in about five hours, and he needed to be well established at the Bronze before that, so his showing up and selecting minions didn’t seem out of place. The way through the sewer was tricky, if he didn’t want anyone to trace him here to Angel’s. He glanced at Buffy’s event calendar. “That bring us up through the next month?”

   “Yeah, the only thing missing is you showing up and kidnapping Willow,” Buffy said. “Think you can restrain yourself?”

   “I think I can keep the impulse in check.”

   “So, that could all be going on out in humanville, if it touches over there....”

   “I’ll keep you posted.”

   “So, what should we be aware of on your end?”

   “Well, the Master almost has his machine up and running,” Spike said. “I’m... not sure if this is a good or a bad thing. It’s been part of what’s been keeping him localized, but....”

   “It’s also utterly heinous,” Buffy finished.

   Spike nodded. “The Master’s lieutenants are vying for attention,” he said. “Always, always sparring. I don’t know much about them. There’s one clever bloke calls himself Trick, he’s one to look out for.”

   “I think he’s the one who organized SlayerFest,” Buffy said. “In our world.”

   “Well, he’s a little busy demanding better accommodations just now,” Spike said. “But he has a good faction behind him, and I think he views me as a rival, so I have to keep an eye on him. Sunday and her little team from the college have started a god damn sorority.”

   “Oh, good lord!” Buffy said, rolling her eyes.

   “She will not stop playing Cyndi Lauper at the Bronze. Oh, and the Anointed One is still there, being all cryptically wise and creepy. I cannot wait to dust that little brat just one more time.”

   “Do I get to watch this time?”

   “Not unless we get the scythe damn fast. He’s on my sights for a display of prowess. Next time he gives me an excuse,  _ any  _ excuse.” He brushed off his hands as if cleaning off dust. He looked over at Buffy. “He has a taste for children. Makes demands and screams until he gets them. Most of the babies from the breeding pens… uh....”

   “Got it,” Buffy said gently. It was bad enough that Spike had to watch it. She knew describing it was hard for him.

   “So, no. I’m dusting that bitty bugger fast, even if it will put Gramps’ knickers in a twist. I’ll bet he’s sick of the dozy git himself by now. Oh, one bit of good news. Brian’s there.”

   “Who?”

   “Brian was my Brain when I went after the Gem of Amara. He’s got experience planning a dig, was a miner before he was turned.”

   “That _ is _ good news. Is he okay with the soul?”

   “Brian was always easy to control with a hard hand and a grim look, so I think I can claim him. He actually likes to dig, so he’ll probably follow just based on what I’m after.”

   “And what exactly  _ are _ you after, Spike?” Angel said coming in.

   “The scythe,” Spike said, like speaking to a toddler. But he knew that wasn’t what Angel meant. “What are you getting at, mate?”

   “Well, you’re palling around with the Master’s cronies,” Angel said. “Enough that you’re joking about Cyndi Lauper and sororities. You’re getting to know them all by name.”

   “Yeah,” Spike said. “I’m undercover. That’s the point.”

   “Just don’t forget what you’re there for,” Angel said.

   “Angel, just shut up!” Buffy snapped.

   Angel blinked. Buffy glared at him. Spike really didn’t want to get in between this. Tension mounted and Buffy threw her pencil at the counter, where she and Spike were making notes. “Gah,” she muttered. “I hate it when you two get together. Talk about vampires sparring.  _ You _ haven’t found any of this shit out, with all your lurking and sneaking and posturing about goodness. You can’t just  _ talk  _ good, you have to  _ be _ good! Spike’s doing this, leave him alone.” She went to the door and yanked on her jean jacket. “I’m going to homecoming. I might as well. Faith? You with me?”

   Faith looked up from the couch, where she’d been shoveling pizza into her face. “Daytime party, I thought I’d skip it.”

   Buffy glared, as if she were disappointed. “Fine. I’ll go without a date.”

   “Oh, it’s a date?” Faith said. “Then I’m in.”

   “Have fun,” Spike said. He knew what Buffy and Faith could be like if they let loose. And these two didn’t have bad history, so it was likely to be hair-raising. “Take pictures.”

   Buffy smirked and came up to kiss him goodbye. “Probably not  _ that  _ much fun.”

   “Shame,” Spike said.

   “You’re going like that?” Angel asked Faith.

   Faith looked down at her black men’s shirt and her hip-hugging jeans. She tied the bottom of her shirt to show off her midriff, unbuttoned the top few buttons to reveal a lot of cleavage, and yanked her jeans down a little lower. “Better?”

   Angel rolled his eyes.

   “Come on,” Buffy said. “Giles gave me some pocket money, we’ll blow it on dresses and show up fashionably late.”

   “Are you even allowed?” Faith asked on her way out the door.

   “Hey, school guidance counselor. I’m  _ chaperoning _ . Love,” she threw at Spike.

   “Love,” he threw back. 

   “That was casual,” Angel muttered as the door closed.

   Spike glanced up. “We are.”

   “ _ Oh. _ ”

   Spike smirked at Angel’s relieved and knowing tone. “I don’t mean  _ we’re _ casual,” he said. “I mean we’ve been at this long enough we’re done with all the melodramatic goodbyes and protestations of adoration.”

   “You never were with Drusilla,” Angel muttered, as if he’d just caught Spike out at something.

   “Yeah, I know,” Spike said. “We never got that deep.”

   Angel looked confused at that. Spike wasn’t surprised. Angel had never understood love. Spike hadn’t either, before he’d gotten the soul. He’d loved, it was perfectly real, he was devoted and he would have given his life for Buffy long before the soul. But there was an element of peace and maturity to real love that Angel had just never understood, soul or no. Not the way Angel thought of love, anyway, as perfection and redemption and purity. Love wasn’t a fairy-tale, it was a very real thing, warts and all. 

   The love Spike and Buffy shared was rooted in friendship, mutual mistakes, and a level of intimacy that Spike knew Buffy had never, ever achieved with Angel. With this Angel, even less. From the first time that Spike and Buffy had met, “ _ I’ll kill you, _ ” to the moment they had parted, “ _ I love you, _ ”  and everything between, as well as everything after once they found each other again, the journey had been the thing. As far as Spike had gleaned, Buffy and Angel had had a high school fling. And an abusive one at that.

   And Angel hadn’t been able to stick it out. The pain was too much for him. Which Spike had always felt rather proud about. So Buffy could rake him over the coals... good. He deserved those coals.

   Angel’s thoughts were traveling in much the same direction as Spike’s. “So... how did it happen? You two?”

   Spike considered saying the Slayer needed a decent cock in the sack, but decided against it. “We fought, then we had some mutual enemies, then we sort of became friends. It was rocky. We made it work.”

   “So... she decided she wanted a vampire, then?” Angel said. “She liked being with a vampire?”

   “She likes being with  _ me _ ,” Spike said. “I’m not exactly your average vamp.”

   “Are you sure about that?”

   Spike decided to nip this already. “Look. I’m going to assume you and the Spike here had the same history as me and the Angel I know there. So I’m just going to point out, I’m no more the same as that bloke you knew, than you are the same as you were back in 1880, when you were training me up to kill _ your  _ way.” He strode toward the sewer entrance. “Truth is, I was a better bloke than you back then. And I’m a better bloke now. I know you got a torch for the bird, but Buffy’s not Dru, and Buffy’s not yours. You got there first, but you’re not her sire, you’re not her lover, and she’s not insane. Don’t think you can play the same games. Not this time.” He shook his head. “Besides, you got your own slayer to play with. I’ll stick with mine, you stick with yours, yeah?”

   “Faith’s not mine,” Angel said. “Not like that, we’re friends.”

   “She sure had her hands all over you this morning, mate.”

   Angel shrugged. “She does that. I don’t.”

   Spike stopped. Uh-oh. “You don’t?”

   Angel shook his head. “Never really... not for years. Other vampires won’t accept....”

   “You mean you won’t accept _ them _ ,” Spike said.  He himself wasn’t having too many problems working people, even other vampires, around the soul. All vampires started evil, but not all were die-hard killers, and he’d been able to work with a handful. He certainly could have dated, if he hadn’t been hung up on Buffy. But he’d always been more social than Angel, now that he thought about it. “You’re telling me you and Faith haven’t...?”

   Angel shook his head. “It’s not like that.”

   “How about anyone?” Spike pressed. Who had his Angel had a thing for? “You and that Cordelia bird, you two...?”

   “Nah. I mean, we’ve sat together at a few clubs, danced some, but... what?”

   Spike didn’t quite think it polite to ask whether or not Angel had gotten laid in the last century. Then, bugger it, who cared. “Have you gotten laid in the last century?”

   Angel rolled his eyes. “Ugh. Honestly, Spike. You’re still a damn fledge.” Angel strode off upstairs in a huff, and Spike was pretty sure the answer to that was pretty much no. If it hadn’t been, Angel would have just said  _ Of course I have! _

   This was potentially disastrous. Spike knew Darla didn’t do it for him, but anyone else might. Anyone human or young enough for the sex to feel pure to him. Like Faith. Or Cordelia. If the ponce went and fell in love, it could be January ‘98 all over again in  _ this _ world. Spike grabbed Buffy’s notepad, and scribbled out a note for her before he left.

_ Perfect happiness, _ he wrote.

_    He doesn’t know. _

__ _ You have to tell him. _ __

__ __ __ _ Love. _

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lyrics from Bitch by
> 
> Meredith Brooks


	10. Chapter 10

 

   “You have to tell him.”

   Jenny Calendar looked up at the ceiling of Buffy’s office, seemingly exasperated. “You don’t understand, Buffy,” she said. “This is beyond you and me. This is the core of our clan. Vengeance.”

   “If vengeance is the core concept of your clan, your clan sucks,” Buffy snapped.

   Jenny shook her head. “You simply don’t understand,” she said. “It’s not a small thing that happened. The entire clan, everyone, was slaughtered. Only two members of the Kalderash clan survived. One was an old woman. One was a little girl, barely a toddler, the little sister of the girl Angelus murdered. They had been out begging when the Whirlwind destroyed the clan. They were left abandoned, destitute. The only light they had left was that Angelus had suffered, his pain was eternal.”

   “Yeah, well, the thing is, Jenny, that it’s not!”

   “That is why I was sent,” Jenny said. “The elder woman — that very toddler from a hundred years ago. My great-grandmother. She was schooled by her own great aunt in the ways of vendetta. She can’t just dismiss it, it’s our legacy.”

   “It sounds toxic.”

   “But it has kept us together. Through a hundred years, GranJanna and her enduring vengeance has created a unity. Her children, and her children’s children, and their children after that. When one of us was injured, or lost, or betrayed, we knew we could stand together, or if all else failed, vengeance would be ours. And we knew that because Angelus stood as testimony to our retribution. When other Romani clans have been scattered or slaughtered, fallen apart through persecution, we have focused on this vengeance, and it has kept us  _ strong _ . It’s  _ worked _ . We can’t abandon it now.”

   “But it’s doomed to failure,” Buffy pointed out. “There has  _ got _ to be something else your clan could focus on. Crochet?”

   Jenny shook her head. “I guess you can’t understand. You’re an outsider.”

   “Of your family, yeah,” Buffy said. “But not of the human race. And I know more about vampires than you ever will. Vengeance is pointless. It can only hurt people, including you. It’s like trying to wreak vengeance on a shark or something, killing was just what he was going to do. I get killing him to protect others, but this is pointless! And it’s done now. Angel is helping to save the world. That’s just where we are. If you like the world, you’re going to have to do something else.”

   “We will ensure that he stays in pain,” Jenny said staunchly. “That’s my job.”

   “You will fail.”

   “No. GranJanna is a very wise and very powerful woman. She told me Angel’s pain was fading;  _ that _ is my mission, to assure it will continue.”

   “Which sounds like a waste of time for  _ everyone involved _ ,” Buffy pointed out.

   Jenny shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. I will see to it. I didn’t even have to do anything. You were killed. His pain returned.”

   “That doesn’t mean it’s eternal!” Buffy snapped. “Look. Your elders told you what would happen if he gets a happy?”

   “They... were very reluctant,” Jenny confessed. “But yes. They did tell me at the beginning of this year, when his pain... uh....”

   “ _ Uh _ , what?” Buffy demanded.

   “Began to diminish again.”

   “Yeah. Because he’s not  _ alone. _ He has friends, he has a purpose. Hell, he still has me, in some idealized painted version he’s been nursing for the last three years. What was with that curse to start with!” Buffy found herself shouting. It was after hours, so she knew the school was mostly empty, but this still wasn’t something either she or Jenny wanted bandied about. “ _ It made him unhappy. _ People still  _ died _ while he was unhappy! In my book, that makes you just as evil.”

   Jenny’s eyes narrowed. “My people have heard things like this before,” she said. “Evil, witches, city rats, gypsies, tramps, and thieves. Well, I see you, Ms. Summers. You’re a privileged wealthy white girl from LA, with no understanding of our people or our ways.”

   “I don’t give a damn about your people,” Buffy said. “I’m talking your family, specifically. Whoever it was who decided it was okay to torture some creature, rather than just take him out. Whoever it was who decided to make every family reunion about hate. Whoever it is, right now, who feels they need to usurp  _ your entire life, _ to make sure one guy, who’s been trying really hard to be good, feels like shit.”

   Jenny frowned. Buffy wondered if she’d ever realized that was what she’d done. Sacrificed her life for the sake of Angel’s pain.

   “It’s petty. And it hurts your family more than it hurts him. I feel  _ terrible _ for that poor girl Angel killed. I feel awful for the rest of the clan. I feel really sorry for that old woman and that little girl who were left abandoned because of it. And you know what? I feel bad for you! You should be allowed to be free, to have what job you want, and not have to lie about who you are to all your friends.”

   Jenny stared into space, trembling slightly. Buffy could tell she was an inch away from fury. The need for vengeance was very real in her clan, clearly. But Buffy was also pretty sure none of the clan had ever singled Jenny out and pointed out that she had been as trapped by this curse as Angel was.

   “Just tell him there’s an escape clause, and that he needs to be careful,” Buffy said. “Tell him he could lose his soul. It’s important.”

   “And something you should have mentioned to me,” said Giles in the doorway. “Years ago.”

   Jenny whirled in her chair. “Rupert!” she whispered. “I... I thought you were in the library.”

   “I thought I’d bring Buffy these,” he said. He was holding an opened box of sugar cookies. “I had extra.”

   “That’s, um... wow. Yeah,” Buffy said. She grabbed the box and shoved it into her work bag. “That’s really thoughtful, Giles.”

   Giles wasn’t looking at her. He was staring at Jenny.

   Buffy cringed. “You know, um, I think I’ll go and, uh... check in on Willow and Xander. They were doing some research on... uh....” Nothing, actually, but that was less important than getting out of the way of the couple who were staring at each other in horror and betrayal.

   Buffy remembered how Giles had felt when he’d found out about Jenny in her own universe. He’d been mortified, almost disgusted, and it had taken him some time to forgive her for her deceit. She wished she felt bad. She sort of didn’t. She’d been trying to get Jenny to come clean, at least to Angel, for almost a week now. Ever since she’d gotten back from the Homecoming dance and seen the note Spike had written on her pad.

   He’d been perfectly right. Angel had to know. But she didn’t want to be the one to tell him.

   She bustled into the library, where Cordelia was with Xander and Willow, all of them making little rosettes for Sunnydale’s Homecoming Parade, where Cordelia would stand on a flowery float, waving beautifully at her followers. Her entire court would be standing with her, and Willow and Xander, whom Cordelia had selected personally as her courtiers, would be in the back, holding her train.

   The Homecoming dance and election had actually gone over without a hitch, and the game Sunday had been the easy win it was supposed to be. Buffy was astonished at how smoothly everything had gone. Without Buffy splintering the vote, Cordelia had won Queen by a landslide, Harmony was elected Princess, and a couple of jocks Buffy didn’t distinctly remember had won King and Prince. 

   Even the parties after had been comparatively tame, monsterwise, though one of the smaller parties had been attacked by vampires trying to set the house on fire to flush the humans out — the students reported their parents had run the creatures off with hoses and vials of holy water — and Jonathan’s party had had some sort of magical explosion. Since that was mostly the Magic Club (sans Willow, who had been at Cordelia’s) it had made sense that it got a little out of hand. No casualties, though.

   Buffy and Faith had stayed out most of the night, at first at Cordy’s party, and when the dancing had died down and everyone had collapsed on the communal air mattresses to wait safely until morning, the two slayers had gone a-slaying. Buffy had forgotten how much fun it was to slay with Faith when Faith was on the ball, and not being evil. 

   This Faith had never accidentally killed a human being, and thus never felt she had to pin it on someone else. She’d never been corrupted by the Mayor, she had a serious job to do fighting real evil with the Master, and had been using Angel as a mentor ever since she got to Sunnydale. Also, since Buffy was quite a bit older, there was a certain level of respect she had for her now, which she hadn’t had when they were approximately the same age. Since Buffy was clearly not trying to take her role (the Scythe was to go to her) she was willing to take what she could from the elder slayer. She was what Faith had been when Buffy had first met her, and Buffy had missed that Faith. 

   Slaying with her had been a riot. The two had gone out still in their off-the-rack formal wear, which was not made for slaying vampires and had not, for the most part, survived the experience. They’d come back to the mansion laughing and a little slay-drunk. 

   Angel had stared in bewilderment at Buffy’s shredded dress, which had ripped right down the middle and had turned into a sort of glittering off-the-shoulder bikini with a skirt slit up the side. She’d been too high on the slay to care at that point about Angel’s... well, it was a leer, wasn’t it? That was definitely a shy, uncertain, somewhat boyish leer. She’d barely thought about how she was dressed until she’d seen Spike’s note.

   She had been trying not to think about that perfect happiness thing.

   She’d been careful not to be too revealing or too accepting around Angel ever since, but she very much wanted Jenny to tell him about the escape clause on the curse. When she’d first mentioned it, Jenny had insisted they couldn’t tell him because then it would be a goal he would strive for. Buffy had worked a little on the computer teacher every day, but this was the closest she had gotten to getting her to agree, and it wasn’t an agreement at all. Maybe being revealed to her boyfriend would make Jenny a little more open to telling the truth about all of it.

   “How’s it going?” Buffy asked as she walked into the library. She propped her bag on the counter, figuring she’d help Cordelia, for a few rosettes at least. Another box of cookies was open on the table between Cordy and Xander, and Buffy idly popped one into her mouth.

   “It’s going great,” Cordelia said. “I’ve got just a few more banners to make for the court’s float, and I have a photo shoot for the new Orphaned Students’ Fund poster. Did you know, they’re considering making the school into a dorm? Some of the empty classrooms, since the graduating class is so much smaller these days.”

   This was true. Sunnydale always had a high mortality rate. In this universe, the graduating class was down about a hundred students. Not all had died. Several families had just high-tailed it out of town, but it was still a significantly smaller class than the one Buffy had known.

   “Yeah, I’d heard that,” Buffy said, snagging another cookie.

   “Oh, and my tailor is nearly done with Willow and Xander’s costumes for the float!”

   Buffy raised an eyebrow at them. “You have costumes?”

   “I’m just wearing my formal dress,” Willow said.

   “But, I have a cap for her, isn’t it lovely?” Cordelia said, and she fetched it. It was actually nice, one of those long conical princess caps with a flowing veil off the back. It was a shiny silk fabric which would, if Buffy remembered correctly, match Willow’s homecoming dress well enough. Cordelia thought about such things.

   “Very nice,” Buffy confessed.

   “For a glorified servant,” Willow said.

   “Lady-in-Waiting,” Cordelia said. “It’s a coveted position. You get to be on the float. The rest of Xander’s outfit isn’t finished yet, but I have the hat.” She pulled another cap out, and set it staunchly on Xander’s head.

   Xander stood with a lost look in his eyes. Clearly this was not the first time he had endured this today. Buffy’s mouth fell open. Was Cordelia really dressing Xander as a full-on jester? “Uh....”

   “Isn’t it great?” Cordy said, beaming beatifically. “This is really an expensive costume. Daddy’s going to flip when he sees the tailor’s bill, but... nothing but the best for my guy!” She hugged Xander happily. He stood, patient and long-suffering, under his three-pronged cap, in Sunnydale colors. It had jingle bells.

   “Couldn’t he have worn his formal wear?” Buffy asked.

   Cordy rolled her eyes, as if Buffy had suggested he come dressed as a tramp. “Uh, _no!_ _He_ didn’t win homecoming king! Besides, we need a court jester. I’m so glad I get to pick my own courtiers!” She hugged Xander again. “I love you, my funny guy.”

   “Love you too,” Xander said, through the fixed smile on his face.

   Buffy had been going to warn Xander about the incipient break up and to tell him to decide if he and Willow really wanted that to be where their hormones took them. But at the rate this was going, she was fairly certain Cordy and Xander would be breaking up any day, anyway. Monsters, yeah, she’d interfere. In this instance... did it really matter who was dating who in high school?

   She grabbed another cookie, so her mouth would be too busy to talk. They were really good, sweet and buttery and melty, and they went down really easily. She took another handful while Cordelia went on about her homecoming duties, and the success or failure of different aspects of Spirit Week.

   Buffy didn’t really care enough about School Spirit Week to listen very closely. She’d actually had plenty on her plate. She’d arranged for counseling sessions for what her own experience identified as problem students, Tucker and his brother Andrew, Jonathan, Amy, and she was working on figuring out some way to get the lunch lady fired before she started poisoning people.  

   She munched on cookies and made rosettes and considered her job. She was seriously earning the paycheck she hadn’t actually received yet. The students of Sunnydale really needed a grown up to talk to who would understand that, even though their little brother had been murdered by vampires, they were still angry at their parents over little things like homework, and worried about who would invite them to the next dance. Daily life went on even when the world was slowly spiraling into hell. Buffy really did get that.

   Which was why Giles’s grim face made sense to her when he came back into the library, his eyes distant. Even with everything else going on, Jenny was his girlfriend. And being lied to hurt. “Everything okay?” she asked.

   Giles frowned. “Jenny has gone... home,” he said.

   “Home?”

   “To her house,” he said, to make things clear. “We... we need time to... to think about things.” He swallowed. “I need a cup of tea.” He went into his office and set about brewing his industrial Builder’s Tea, which was what he called the stuff he kept at the office (both here and at the Magic Box in Buffy’s own world) and was made with tea bags instead of loose leaf.

   Buffy followed him in. He was frowning at the kettle on the hot plate, as if daring it not to boil. “I’m sorry,” she said.

   “Clearly you knew from the moment you arrived,” Giles said. “I take it she was also a spy in your world?”

   “Yeah,” Buffy said. “I found out... or we would have found out, some time last year.”

   Giles nodded. “Were you planning to keep this a secret from me, as well?”

   Buffy perched on the edge of the desk by the door. “I hadn’t decided yet,” she said. “I was hoping I could talk her into telling you herself. She... does care about us. That’s all very real.”

   “And yet she was lying to us,” he said. He shook his head. His hands were fidgeting. As if looking around for a reprieve, his eyes caught on another box of cookies that perched on the edge of his desk. He picked it up, clearly more for something to do with his hands while the kettle boiled than for any other reason. He took a cookie and bit into it, chewing thoughtfully. “She’s been lying the whole time.” He absently held the box out to Buffy, and she absently took one.

   “Yeah,” she said. “But not because she means us any harm. And I mean, you were lying, before the Master got out, about the vampires and stuff. I mean, it’s not as if everyone knows you’re a watcher, right?”

   “Staying incognito is not the same as being undercover!” Giles snapped.

   Buffy cringed. Spike hadn’t been back since that first morning. Angel reported that Spike was still there, still ranging about the demon district, and had amassed a number of minions of his own under the Master, but she hadn’t seen him herself. She missed him. Of course... she missed a lot of things.

   “She was reporting back to her... her _ people _ . She was manipulating all of us, Faith, Kendra, Buffy. My... Buffy,” he amended.

   “You were reporting back to the Watchers’ Council,” Buffy pointed out. “You manipulate people to try and keep them safe. I’m not saying it’s exactly the same. I mean, slayers and watchers are trying to save people, and her family is just focused on vengeance. But... to  _ Jenny _ it probably feels the same.”

   “Yes, yes, she went on about how the curse has, rather counter-intuitively, kept her clan together. But I really don’t see her following up on any of that bollocks. She spewed off that rubbish like it was the bloody gospel of St. Mark.” He narrowed his eyes. “Dozy bint could have told me.”

   Buffy rolled her eyes. “Well, you could have figured it out,” she insisted. “Or, you know, if it was really important, asked me!”

   “How should I have asked you?” Giles demanded, standing up. “You’re the one from the alternate future! You should just  _ tell me _ the rot what’s gonna happen, without my having to guess and play bloody games with you!”

   “Well... I have been!” Buffy shouted back. “All the bad juju, I’ve given you a goddamn timeline! You and mom, you’re on me  _ all the time! _ I just want some time to be myself, and instead I have to go be the slayer. Always. It’s just not fair.”

   “Well, life’s not fair,” Giles threw back. “You think I wanted to be a watcher? You think I wanted to deal with all this? This wasn’t what I wanted,  _ I _ had plans for my life!  _ I  _ was going to be in a band! And now I have to deal with all your sodding tripe!” He grabbed his bag and shoveled the box of cookies into it while he muttered under his breath about bourgeois Americans. “Well, bugger all this, I’m out of here.”

   “You left the kettle on,” Buffy snapped at him.

   “I have an appointment!” he announced. “I have to go deal with your mum, since she’s all up in my arse about it all and getting her paws all over my books.”

   “You’re the one who’s so stuffy you won’t let them out of your apartment!” Buffy snapped. “Like, get over yourself. Who cares about a bunch of musty old history books, anyway?”

   “I bloody well don’t,” Giles snapped. He reached over, picked the kettle off the hot plate, stepped back, and dropped the scalding water all over his back desk. “There. Kettle’s not on.”

   “Real mature!” Buffy snapped after his retreating back.

   She reached over and turned off the hot plate, and saw that Giles had spilled water on another stack of cookies piled by his desk. “God, what a jerk,” she said, shaking the water off a box. She should check and see that they were okay. She opened the box, and saw that there was a protective plastic covering over the cookie tray. That worked. She opened the tray and took out a few more cookies — they really were good — munching them idly while she went back out to the library.

   “Where did Giles go?” Cordelia asked.

   “Don’t know. Don’t care,” Buffy said.

   “It’s just he usually won’t leave unless we go first,” Willow said. “Something about school policy, and students not being allowed to be unsupervised.”

   “Yeah, well,” Buffy said. “Not my problem.” She felt anxious. “When’s sunset?”

   “Not for another two hours,” Cordelia said.

   Everyone knew when sunset was these days.

   Too early to go slaying. She wanted to be  _ doing _ something. Maybe she could take Faith and go out for a burger or something. “Did Faith come in today?”

   “Class and Faith are like East and West, and never the twain shall meet,” Xander said. When Cordelia and Willow both looked at him, he looked embarrassed. “Hey, I was in the same English class, honest.” He turned back to Buffy. “Anyway, I heard Snyder already has plans to expel her for truancy. Even this early in the year.”

   “That’ll just show what a jerk he is,” Buffy snapped. “He needs a slayer in the school. One of these days, I’ll show him. Or just take him to the zoo and put him in front of a snake.” She laughed. “That’ll show him.” She grabbed the box of cookies off the table between Cordy and Xander. “I’m gonna go find Faith. Later guys!” She waved as she headed out the door.

   A second later she popped her head back in. “Hey, Cordy? Any chance I could be a part of your court? I’d love to be on the homecoming float.”

   “Uh... I don’t think they allow teachers. Or... whatever you are,” Cordy said.

   Buffy clicked her teeth in disappointment. “Oh, well. I’ll be there Saturday! Throw an extra handful of candy my way!” Buffy strolled off, humming the school song.

   The three teenagers stared after her in some kind of disbelief. “Is it me?” Xander asked. “Or did she seem kind of....”

   “Sunny,” Willow said. “Cheerful. Bubbly.” She frowned. “She seems more like Buffy.”

   “Yeah, she does,” Xander said fondly, gazing at the door.

   “Ahem,” Cordy said. “Don’t you two have some more cookies to sell or something?” she asked. “As homecoming queen, it is my job to ensure you’re showing the proper school spirit.”

   “Nope,” Xander said. “My allotment of band cookies was gone two days ago.”

   “Giles bought all of mine,” Willow said.

   “It’s weird, they’re selling like hot cakes,” Xander said. “Which is funny, since the hot cakes, not really moving.”

   Cordelia laughed at his joke, and kissed him.

   “It’s just nice to see Buffy not worried for once,” he said. “She’s been telling us to be on the lookout for just about everything, from demon children to evil chocolate bars. I don’t know.” He shook his head. “Sometimes, I think she’s concerned over things that just aren’t gonna happen.”

 


	11. Chapter 11

 

   Spike did one last double back to be absolutely sure he hadn’t been followed, and then finally moved the boxes off the secret sewer entrance to the school basement. He glanced up. The library floor had not been repaired yet, but a huge piece of plywood had been nailed down over the gap, and Giles had thrown an industrial carpet over that, so it almost looked like there was nothing wrong with the library.

   It looked worse down here, where the bits of flooring were still piled along the wall. Spike shivered. He could sort of  _ feel  _ the hellmouth, breathing its demonic energies through the very air of the basement. It wasn’t a real thing, of course. It could be made tangible, like when the seal of Danzalthar had been active — and clearly Willow had done something similar to drag them here, making the portal as physical as an ordinary doorway — but for the most part it was a mystic weakening in the walls between worlds, and it made the demon within him feel strong. He tossed his head back, as if being caressed by a zephyr.

_ Settle down,  _ he told himself. He’d been telling himself that for days, now. He hadn’t been able to get away. It had been a rough week. He had been able to avoid killing any of the tortured victims in the Master’s pens, but human blood... that had become unavoidable. He’d only bitten one woman, who was already so numb he was pretty sure she hadn’t felt it. He’d been as gentle as he could be, and he’d barely taken more than a sip... but it had still made him tremble when he remembered her in his arms. He hadn’t bitten anyone to actually feed from them in....

   No.

   Just don’t think on it.

   For the most part, he had volunteered to be the Master’s guinea pig for his blood extraction machine, which was still repugnant, but much less personal. In a way that sort of made it worse... but at least he hadn’t had to choose out a victim, feel their heat, listen to their breathing and their squeals... not that he wasn’t listening to those sounds all around him all day, every day.

   He still had enough of the Big Bad in him, however, to judge whether human blood was good or not, so he was able to give the Master a very accurate description of what the machine did to various types of victims. It worked very well with younger, fit humans, giving a similar experience to a live drain. The elderly or the small, the blood cooled too quickly, and it tended to clot. Spike rationalized the drinking of it, saying the blood would have been extracted anyway, whether he was the one to drink it or not. He was debating using it for his minions, if and when they ever got out to the vineyard, which was taking  _ forever _ .

   It felt like forever. Logically he knew that it had been less than a week since he’d presented the Master with the plan, and it took a while to arrange for a proper dig. He couldn’t just point his minions at the rock wall and say  _ Go! _ Materials had to be gathered, tools had to be arranged for, plans had to be drawn. He’d managed to get Brian to go and look at the dig site and do a survey. That was a start. It was just... it took so bloody long!

   And the demon district was getting to him.

   Even when he wasn’t around the tortured humans, just being around the other demons was tricky. He had to stay hard _ all the time.  _ He knew the role, but he’d forgotten how much he  _ hated  _ it. It actually wasn’t his nature to be a surly bugger. He was passionate and vigorous, but that dark sneer he’d kept grafted onto his expression was starting to hurt his face.

   In any case, this was the first time he’d been able to get away when he was sure it wouldn’t look suspicious, and he knew he wouldn’t be followed. Trick seemed to doubt him, and was constantly toadying around, and Spike couldn’t trust him, or his faction, not to try to undermine him just to make himself look better in the Master’s eyes.

   Not that Spike cared about how he looked in the Master’s eyes. But he had to  _ look  _ as if he cared, which meant he had to care, which meant.... ugh.

   He missed Buffy like she was his own soul. Which seemed to have shrunk, these days, hiding from the horrors it had to endure. And something was going down tonight. He wasn’t sure what... but he knew it was something.

   He came up through the empty building and found the light still on in the library. “Buffy? Giles?”

   “It’s just us,” Xander said. He and Cordelia were carrying boxes of cookies, while Willow shoved paper rosettes into a cardboard box. “But we were just about to leave. Sun’s going down. Long time no see.”

   “Where’s Buffy?”

   “I’m not sure. I think she went to find Faith. What’s up?”

   Spike grunted. “I don’t know. Something’s going down in the demon district. The Master told all the vampires to stay in.”

   “To stay in?” Willow said. “That’s... that’s a good thing, right?”

   “You’d think so, except he doesn’t do that for no reason at all. He’s got a plan for something. Do you have a copy of Buffy’s timeline?”

   “Uh....” Xander looked blank, but Willow darted behind the library desk and pulled out a calendar.

   “Here.”

   Spike flipped his coat back and sat down to examine it. He had to pause and force himself to concentrate. The human blood made him quick to jump, and a little short-sighted. He was arguing with himself, trying to insist that no, you can’t just forget all this and go find Buffy and do whatever the bloody hell you want. Lives are at stake. And yes, that matters.

   They had already passed SlayerFest, so that wasn’t the deal. “What’s with this band candy thing?” he asked, pointing at the date which Buffy had simply labeled “Chocolate.”

   “Uh... they’re cookies,” Xander said, confused.

   “What?”

   Cordelia held a box out for him. “I haven’t sold mine yet. Been too busy with other Spirit Week activities. Did you want some?”

   “I don’t want your sodding cookies!” Spike snapped at Cordelia. He took in a deep breath.  _ No. Settle down, Spike m’lad. _ Then he paused. “Wait. You said these were band cookies? This is the fundraiser bollocks they planned for the band? Not chocolate bars?”

   “You think the school would spring for  _ chocolate? _ ” Cordelia asked with a laugh. “The tariffs on chocolate shot through the roof two years ago, with the imports from Mexico being counteracted by the trade embargo out of Canada.”

   Everyone stared at her, the others probably surprised that she was up on current events, but Spike was simply confused. It didn’t match his history at all. “Whatever,” he said finally. “You’re telling me the school wouldn’t use chocolate bars for a fundraiser?”

   “ _ Far _ too cost prohibitive,” she said. “Particularly with the property revenues from  _ Sunnydale  _ these days. No, it’s cookies.”

   “Bloody hell,” Spike muttered. “I gotta tell Buffy.”

   “She already knows,” Cordelia said.

   “You told her?”

   “Well, she was eating them all afternoon,” she said. “I thought—”

   “Bugger!” He burst out of his chair and ran to the door. “Any of you sods got a car?”

   “I do, but... uh... it’s almost curfew. I usually go home.”

   “You’ll be fine,” Spike said. “Big Bad’s on your side.”

   “Yeah, well, Big Bad, you won’t be able to get into my car,” Cordelia pointed out. “It’s been blessed.”

   Spike bellowed a word he wouldn’t usually have said. He thought a moment. If he didn’t touch anything, and kept his coat between him and the seat, he should be okay. “So, you’ll just have to open the door for me, won’t you?” he told her.

   Cordelia finally sussed that this was not a small thing. Her entire demeanor changed, and she was suddenly the Cordelia Spike had met in LA, determined and serious. She dropped the cookies on the nearest table and grabbed her sweater. “Where are we going?”

   “Angel’s place.”

   “What about us?” Xander asked, indicating him and Willow.

   “Get to the hospital, and guard the infants' ward!” Spike shouted.

   “Why?”

   Spike glared at him. “‘Cause I’ve already seen too many babies eaten this week.”

 

***    

   Angel was mooching about in his room, basically feeling glum. He hated it when Faith headed off early. He didn’t like to admit it. He liked to think that he preferred to be alone. He would flee and seek out solitude and disappear into his books and his sketches and hockey games when people were actually around him. But whenever Faith left without him, striding into the sunlight where he couldn’t follow, some part of him felt like she should have waited for him. He felt — he hated to put this word to it — abandoned.

   It was not a feeling he’d ever had before he got the soul. Not that he hadn’t been abandoned plenty when he was a soulless monster — Darla would run off back to her Master for instance. A lot. Which was part of the reason why he had made Drusilla, who he had tormented into a state of neediness until he had felt she would never leave him. Except... she had eventually tired of him turning the tables on her and abandoning  _ her _ quite so frequently. So she had made Spike, who was naturally needy, and who wouldn’t neglect her. Angel had done what he could to make it so neither of them would abandon him. He wanted to be needed, to be respected.

   To be loved.

   But once he got that soul, he didn’t feel merely anger when his partners or his family or his people strode off, leaving him behind to fend for himself. He felt... hurt. Lonely. Injured. It wasn’t... right. He liked being alone. But he preferred to leave. He didn’t like being the one left.

   He tried to turn his mind to his own pastimes, but nothing grabbed him. There wasn’t a decent game on, and he didn’t like getting caught up in sports that he couldn’t ever see in person, anyway, which was why he had focused on hockey. He tried to read, but none of his classics grabbed him. He tried to turn on some music, but Beethoven was just a little too overwhelming, and his Bach cello wasn’t enough. He wanted something that reflected the building confusion in his mind. Ah, Boléro, by Ravel. He turned the piece on and tried to sketch, but that didn’t catch him, either.

   His usually comforting sketches of Buffy hadn’t been lately. It was as if Buffy had been his own personal muse, and the real Buffy, or the other Buffy, had come from out of some netherspace and stolen  _ his _ Buffy away from him. He felt abandoned again, by a girl who had died years ago. Why, when she had been merely dead, did it seem he could hold her more closely than he ever had when she was alive? Why did he only feel abandoned now that she was back?

   The music built, adding in more and more instruments, tiny variations on the theme, and Angel tried to do the same, adding in subtleties and alterations to some sketch or other of Buffy, but... the Buffy on the page kept turning into the hard-eyed Buffy who had been haunting his house the last week. The Buffy that was not his, but was somehow Spike’s.

   Angel turned back to the sketch he had made the morning after the homecoming dance, of Buffy in her gorgeous tatters, glittering and backlit by the morning sun. This woman looked hard. Her eyes were knowing and her mouth was sly and her face was experienced. Her back was straight and her stance was tall and she looked dangerous. She was glorious, but she didn’t look....

   He looked up at the innocent portrait of Buffy on the wall, gazing demurely down.

_ Buffy. _

   The music reached its inevitable crescendo and then collapsed, much like Angel’s life had done in the last week. He dropped his sketch book on the ground with the final crash of sound, and stood up to change the record. The sun was almost down... maybe he should check out the demon district, make sure Spike was okay... if only from a distance....

   Someone had come home. He could hear her in the kitchen, shunting things around in the fridge. He went out, hoping it was Faith. He wasn’t sure he could face that hard-eyed false Buffy this evening.

   It  _ was _ Buffy. She had left her jacket on the floor by the door, and was muttering to herself as she rummaged in the fridge. “Faith? Don’t we have any milk?” Buffy called out behind her.

   “I don’t think so,” Angel said. Faith never drank the stuff, and he didn’t take it when he had coffee, so he kept forgetting to buy it.

   Buffy stood up so quickly she nearly cracked her head on the ceiling of the fridge. “Angel!” she breathed.

   She was holding a plastic tray of cookies. A couple of them had bounced out of the packaging as she’d whirled around. “Damn,” she muttered, awkwardly putting them back. “Oh. Uh. Hi.” She smiled shyly and stepped away from the fridge, letting the door close. “I... didn’t know you’d be awake.”

   “It’s... nearly sunset,” he said.

   She was looking at him, something different in her eyes which he hadn’t seen before. Not from this Buffy. She came the few steps toward him, gazing at him in something that seemed like... wonder. “Would you... like a cookie?” she asked.

   She held the tray out for him.

   “Sure.” He took one, but didn’t put it to his lips. He was too distracted by the hand that was suddenly on his upper arm. He looked down. Buffy had touched him....

   Had she touched him at all, this whole time? He was fairly sure she had not. Not like this, anyway, deliberately and voluntarily.

   “How have you been, Angel?” she asked softly. “I... worry about you, you know.”

   “Really?” He was confused. Mostly she’d been terse and distracted around him. “Worry? About me?”

   “Yeah....” Her hand traveled gently away from his arm and was now gingerly traversing his chest. Buffy’s eyes watched it, as if it were a separate thing from herself, something curious and new. Then her eyes traveled up to meet Angel’s, and her face... her face was so clear and so open, his breath caught. She’d been so hard, so guarded, so... not Buffy.

   This was Buffy. This was... oh, god, it really was her!

   He gasped with the realization, and suddenly the cookies were on the ground. He’d put his arms around her, and she was holding him, warm and close and tiny. She smelled of school books and human girl and sugar cookies, and he half wanted to devour her. But more, he just wanted to hold her, claim her. This was his. It was  _ Buffy _ .

   “Oh, god, I missed you!” Buffy whispered against his chest.

   “I missed you,” he breathed into her ear. They pulled a little away and locked eyes. “What do we do?”

   “I... I don’t know,” she said. “I know it’s... it’s complicated, it’s just....” She reached out and touched his face. “Suddenly everything else feels like a dream. I love you so much... I....”

   Angel groaned. He dove and kissed her, her soft, living mouth caressing his, as he remembered her doing before she had died. His only, his beloved, his true love in all the world.

   When he let her go she stood, her eyes still closed, her face tilted toward him, stunned by the kiss. He took her hands and led her, stumbling slightly, to the couch, where he planned to talk. They would sort out how she’d gotten tangled up with Spike, make decisions about what should happen next. Should she really try to get back to her own world? Her mom was here, and he was here, and really, wasn’t this a better place for her? Where he could look out for her? But she wasn’t interested in talking. The moment he sat her on the couch, she kissed him again.

   He was surprised, but he let her, because god, this was  _ Buffy _ , how could he not let her? Her hands were all over him. That was... wow. He hadn’t expected that. But he wasn’t about to argue. He caressed her arms gently, kissed her tenderly, and — ow! She’d bitten him. Not hard, but he hadn’t been expecting that, either.

   “Hey,” he said, slowing down. “It’s okay.”

   “No,” Buffy said. “It’s not. Do you know how much I’ve wanted this? Every day, every night, I’d think about you. Dream about you. Write about you in my diary. You, and me... I know it’s so hard, but....” She moved forward, much more aggressively than he’d been expecting, and straddled his lap. She kissed him more, and... and... was she unbuttoning his shirt? Good god, was this wanton woman hiding under that demure exterior the whole time?

   It seemed like she was, because his shirt was open now, and he could feel her body bearing down on his own utterly uncontained excitement. “Angel,” she whispered. “Angel... Angel....”

   He dared to let his own hands travel up the back of her shirt, just a little, touching the soft skin on her back. At the touch of his cool hands, she leaned back, and ripped her shirt off over her head, tearing it with the speed of its removal.

   “Oh, god,” he whispered. This was really happening. This was really Buffy. She was really doing this. And she had the sweetest little black lace bra on....

   He buried his nose in her bosom, and Buffy groaned, writhing atop him, her blonde hair tossing around her. He knew he should stop. He knew they should talk about this. He knew she was with someone else, that there were complications in the way, that she was so young. (But was she really?) But he just... couldn’t. This was everything he’d wanted, this was  _ Buffy _ , she was _ his, _ there in his arms, in his home, her skin against his.

   He couldn’t take this anymore. He had to have her. He grabbed her and had her down on the couch, and even without music swelling he could almost hear it in his head, as he reached down and claimed her mouth. Her arms held him, and he ground himself atop of her as her legs wrapped around him, pulling him close. They would have to stop in a moment, just for a minute. He’d have to pull away to get her jeans off — god damn modern fashions, why couldn’t she have been wearing a skirt? He could have claimed her already if she had!

   But maybe that would be better. Maybe he should pause, bend down, scoop her into his arms, carry her to his bedroom so they wouldn’t be interrupted by Faith or anything. Yeah. Yeah, that would be best. Take her to his bedroom, to his bed, strip her slowly, touch her pristine body, and then claim it, consummate their destiny, make her completely his. But was Buffy going to give him that chance? She already seemed to be scrabbling at his trousers — oh, god. No. Carry her to the bed like a new bride. It would be better that way.

   He was just about to do that when the door burst open. A furious looking Spike stood there, his body smoking, a few burns from the still setting sun dark on his face. “Get the bloody hell off her!” he shouted.

   Buffy looked over, and looked like she was about to cry. “No!” she sobbed.

   Angel’s blood was up — in more than one way. “Don’t you shout at her like that!”

   “I was shouting at you, you bloody ponce,” Spike said, grabbing at Angel. He dragged him off of his beloved and threw him aside. “You all right, Buffy?”

   “Get off me!” she said. “I don’t want  _ you! _ ”

   Spike rolled his eyes. “Fine, right, did you actually?”

   “What?”

   “Am I gonna have to stake him?” Spike yelled.

   Buffy broke down in earnest, cradling herself and sobbing into her hands.

   Spike abandoned her and whirled to glare at Angel. He took in his open shirt and his unbuttoned slacks, and did another glance at Buffy’s semi-clothed condition. “Did you do it? Did you actually get that far?”

   “None of your business if we did,” Angel said, ashamed of his own guilt. He knew he hadn’t done anything wrong. Buffy loved him, and he loved her, and even if she did make a terrible mistake once and take up with Spike, they all knew who was the better man for her. It was destiny.

   But Spike didn’t seem to care about destiny. He grabbed hold of Angel and shook him. “Did you actually do it or not!”

   “No!” Buffy wailed behind him.

   Spike sagged with unmistakable relief. “Thank god for that. You can live,” he snapped at Angel, and shoved him away.

   “Oh, and if she’d sullied herself with me, I’d have to pay for it?” Angel yelled, puffing up. “She’s in love with me!”

   “Yeah, right,” Spike said.

   “Don’t think you can just come in here and take her from me!” Angel snarled. He grabbed hold of Spike’s coat and shook him in turn. “Buffy’s mine, do you hear me?”

   Spike hit him. Angel hit him back. It was a full on brawl within a second, both of them over the back of the couch, wrestling and punching, snarling like rabid dogs. Things broke, the fire irons fell over them, there was a crash as one of his bookshelves collapsed in their wake.

   “Whoa,” came Cordelia’s voice. “Buffy, maybe you better stand back.”

   “No!” Buffy was suddenly there, dragging Spike off Angel, (Spike had gotten considerably stronger! Angel had actually been afraid he was going to lose that fight) and throwing him aside to stand before Angel like a bodyguard. “Don’t hurt him!”

   Spike rolled his eyes again. “Don’t protect him, pet, he doesn’t deserve it!”

   “But Spike, I  _ love _ him!” she wailed.

   Even Angel noticed that sounded a little off. It wasn’t an impassioned declaration of a grown woman. That sounded like the desperate plea of a teenage kid.

   Spike only blinked. He did not seem at all wounded or disillusioned. “Right, pet, whatever.” He pulled off his coat and put it around her. She let him, looking bewildered, as if she wasn’t quite sure how she’d gotten undressed. “No harm done, yeah? Come on, where’s your shirt?”

   He tried to lead her off, but Buffy wasn’t having it. “I want to stay with Angel,” she whined.

   Spike rolled his eyes. “Fine. You behave yourself, yeah?” he said over his shoulder as Angel picked himself up.

   “Behave myself?” Angel said. He was very confused now. This was  _ Spike _ , telling  _ him _ to behave himself? “Why should I? She wants  _ me, _ now.”

   “Only because she’s been drugged, you git!” Spike snapped. “Which you would have realized if you knew sod all about her!” He found Buffy’s shirt and handed it to her. “Get that on, love. You’ll be glad of it in a bit.”

   Angel was unexpectedly hurt. “She’s... been drugged?” He assumed automatically that it was some kind of love potion. “The first man she sees or something?”

   “Not quite,” Spike said.

   “If it’s not that, why isn’t she throwing herself at you?”

   Spike rolled his eyes again, but otherwise ignored him. “Buffy, love, you remember me?”

   “Well, yeah,” she said. “But—” She looked past him to Angel, and Angel’s gut clenched. Those eyes were full of such love.

   “Yeah, yeah, I know, you love him. Do you remember what happened in our world? Where was the band candy coming from? Do you know?”

   “Um... there was a factory... uh... somewhere downtown. But... that’s so far away, Spike.”

   “I know, do you think you can remember where?”

   “Maybe if I saw the area?”

   “Fine.” Spike turned to Angel. “Do you have a car that isn’t like sitting in an acid bath?” he asked.

   Cordelia stood in the doorway and crossed her arms. “Excuse me for not wanting vampires infesting my Chrysler,” she said, but it wasn’t very nasty.

   “Yeah, I got a car,” Angel said.

   “Fine. I’ll drive.” Spike looked over to Cordy. “Thanks, love. We got it from here. Disaster averted.”

   Cordy raised her eyebrows. “Oh, really? Looked like she was cheating on you anyway.”

   “I didn’t give a rat’s arse if she was cheating,” Spike said. “She’s drugged, and it was potentially catastrophic. Because my bet is you still haven’t told him, right?” he asked Buffy.

   “That’s not real,” she said, confusing Angel utterly. “That can’t be real. That’s just some stupid nightmare I had.”

   Spike rolled his eyes again. “Right. Stay safe home,” he said to Cordy. “There won’t be any vamps on the loose, but keep an eye to your folks. They might be a bit daft tonight.”

   Cordy shrugged. “Whatever.”

   “Thanks again,” Spike said as she left. “Car,” he added to Angel, and dragged Buffy toward the garage. “Does Faith have a cell phone?”

   “A cell phone? No,” Angel said. “Do those newfangled things really work?”

   “Yes! In lieu of a bat signal, do you have any way of contacting her?”

   Angel shook his head.

   “Bugger.”

   There was a bit of a hold up at the car as Buffy insisted she wanted to sit with Angel. Spike clenched his fists, but agreed. As Angel bent to get into the back with Buffy, Spike grabbed his arm. “She kisses you, fine, but you go south, either way, and I will personally stake you, and I don’t care if you do still have a soul!”

   “Buffy can do what she wants!” Angel snapped, but then he paused. “Has she... really been drugged?”

   “You can’t tell?”

   Buffy did seem just a little off compared to what Angel was used to from her. But she seemed so much more like the Buffy he remembered from before. He didn’t know what was real.

   “Okay,” he said. “I... won’t let her go too far.”

   “Such a bloody gentleman,” Spike snarled.

   They got into the car, and Spike had to keep telling Buffy to pay attention, where was the factory or the warehouse or whatever it was, but she kept staring up in rapt adoration at Angel. It was starting to make him feel uncomfortable. “Maybe you should keep looking for that building, Buffy,” he said quietly, and even as he said it, a dark sadness stole around his heart. Spike was right. He knew Spike was right. This wasn’t the real Buffy, for whatever reason.

   She snuggled in against him and nestled her head against his arm while she idly glanced around the town, sounding really uncertain. “I don’t know. Angel? Do you think this is right? I’m not sure....”

   Angel bowed his head. It wasn’t her. His Buffy was gone. Well and truly gone.

   He was never going to have Buffy again. 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The piece Angel is listening to, Bolero, is the unofficial theme song of this entire story, variations on a recurrent theme as things get steadily more and more intense.... Here's a version of it from YouTube 
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r30D3SW4OVw


	12. Chapter 12

  
  


   “So  _ that’s _ why they call you Ripper,” Joyce whispered.

   Giles — Ripper — gazed down at her, his blue eyes mischievous and hungry. “That’s one reason,” he murmured down at her.

   Joyce hummed and arched her back against the hood of the police car as her new lover nuzzled her cheek, his warm breath tickling her skin. She remembered having a husband once, but he hadn’t done this to her, not with this wild passion, and the danger behind his eyes. Hank would never have smashed a store window, or chicken-dared a cop to shoot him before punching him in the face. He would never have claimed his girl on the hood of a police car. But Hank wasn’t Ripper, and Ripper was a wild one. 

   She finally understood why her daughter had started dating a vampire. Why she had gone slaying vampires in the first place. It was the danger, there in the palm of her hand, an inch away from her heart, making her pulse pound and her blood quicken. And Ripper, here, he knew the ways of it all. He’d absorbed all that knowledge, swallowed it down like a vampire with blood. And he was so daring! Joyce giggled like a school-girl.

   She hadn’t expected this to happen tonight. She’d come over to look at some of those books of slayer history, like she’d been doing since she’d seen Buffy, or the other Buffy, and knew what it was her daughter had really been before she died. Usually the visits with only Giles were stilted, annoyed. If they spoke at all it was for him to tell her to look at some specific passage, or for her to ask a specific question about slayer lore. It was a simmering, strictly business sort of interaction, and one that she’d dreaded every time they had an appointment.

   At some deep level Joyce had really hated Giles, with his stuffy attitude and his institutional lies, and his _ I can’t let these volumes out of my possession _ . She knew it wasn’t really Giles’s fault, but she felt as if maybe he had taken Buffy from her. Encouraged her to lie. Replaced her, Joyce, as the parent figure in her life, and a bad one at that.

   At least, all of that was how she  _ had _ felt. Or how she remembered feeling. Now she didn’t care about any of that stuff, and none of it had seemed to matter tonight. Tonight she felt...  _ awake _ . As if she had just come out of a terrible dream, and things were back now, the way they were supposed to be.  

   She’d come over to study with a box of cookies she’d bought from a nice high school girl who had come to her door, hoping that the sweet treat would make the studying a little less onerous. She’d been snacking on them most of the day, anyway. When she got there she found Giles, not in his stuffy tweed, but in a loose t-shirt, with his hair ruffled back as he puffed on a cigarette. Some music Joyce had never heard before was blasting from the record player, and there wasn’t a book in sight.

   “I’m here to study?” she’d said.

   “Yeah, right, suit yourself,” he’d said, walking away from the door and heading back to the carpet. He lay on his back and starting moving his hands to the music, obviously enjoying the old band. It sounded British. She’d pulled out the book she’d been reading last time, sat at the desk to study, but it just hadn’t interested her, and the music had been fascinating. She’d never heard the band before.

   She’d eventually joined him on the carpet, and they passed cookies back and forth, and some other things, and chatted, and joked, and... laughed. Joyce hadn’t laughed in years. It almost felt as if she hadn’t laughed since before her divorce. Then one thing had led to another, and here she was, stretched out on the hood of a police car with a bad boy all over her, the taste of his cigarettes in her mouth.

   Why hadn’t she done things like this before? What had she _ done _ with her life? She’d been boring, and stilted, and tired. What with Buffy getting into so much trouble, and her husband so... disappointing, Joyce had forgotten what it felt like to just enjoy herself. And then Hank was gone, and then Buffy was dead, and then the world seemed about to go to pot, and all joy had died.

   This wasn’t the case now. Ripper’s eyes made her feel good, and his body felt good, and his voice thrummed inside her, and it was all so wonderful. She sighed happily and kissed him again, and he chuckled when he pulled away.

   “Wild woman.”

   “I am,” she purred. “I haven’t felt happy like this in a  _ long _ time.”

   “I’ve not either,” he said. “You know the hell it is, with the weight of the world on your bloody shoulders? Take some girl into your life, only waiting for her to die.” He touched Joyce’s lips. “Or find out she’s been lying to you the whole damn time. Suppose it’s sod’s law in action, eh? Those who run the fastest from the right thing end up with it right down their gullet.” He groaned slightly, his eyes traveling over Joyce’s face. “But you’re making me feel good, girl.”

   Joyce grinned. “I’m really glad,” she moaned up at him. “I’ve been all alone, you know. I’m sick of being sad. You wanna make  _ me _ feel good?”

   Ripper chuckled. “I saw you grabbed the handcuffs,” he said with a feral grin.

 

***   

   “Okay, I came as soon as this thing grabbed me,” Faith said. She looked down at the inky black multi-legged thing which had hold of her pants leg. “Well, I mean, first I tried to stake it, because who the hell wouldn’t, but my hand passed right through it, and it kept... you know, waving and... what the hell is it?”

   “It’s... a fetch,” Willow panted. She opened her eyes, coming down from her trance. They were black. Xander shuddered. “I... always... wanted... to try... one of those!” she said. She giggled a little maniacally and clapped her hands together. The fetch shuddered, made a sound that was suspiciously like a scream, and vanished. Willow shook her head, and when she opened her eyes again, they were clear. “There,” she said. “I did it! I got hold of Faith!”

   Faith and Xander both stared at her.

   “That’s it,” Faith said. “First paycheck, I’m getting a cell phone.”

   “We have to go after the babies,” Willow said. “Xander and I weren’t strong enough, we couldn’t stop them, but Xander spilled this iodine...”

   “Betadine,” Xander said. “I think.”

   “Well, whatever it is,” Willow said. “If we hurry, we can track them from the... whoops!”

   She had tried to stand up, and had toppled over. “I... I think the fetch took a bit more out of me than I’d hoped....”

   “Yeah, that thing looked like it came out of the pit of hell,” Xander said, more than a little wigged out by what his friend had wrought.

   “It was just a projection of my own spirit, Xander.”

   “I  _ really _ hope not,” Xander said. If that was what Willow’s spirit looked like, he was horrified.

   “Well, it’s not like it looked like me,” Willow said. “It was what I could cobble together. Ugh... eeyoargh!”

   Xander took a step back as Willow vomited.

   “Yeah. Okay. Demons at the end of the orange stains?” Faith said, holding her hands up. It was clear she wanted nothing to do with magical backlash. “I’m on it.”

   “Go... go with her,” Willow said, pointing after her.

   Xander shook his head. “No way. You need someone to look after you.”

   “It’s just recoil!” she said. “It’s happened before!”

   This had happened before? She’d done spells that made her do this _ before? _

   “I’ll be fine! I’m in a hospital!”

   “You’re in a hospital filled with a whole bunch of middle aged twelve year olds!” The effects of the cookies had become all too clear once they were around a bunch of adults.

   “Would you just _ go? _ ” She coughed and spat. “If any of those babies get hurt...! Faith may be too busy fighting, will you just...?”

   Willow was begging him. “Okay.” Xander backed away from his white faced friend. “Okay. But don’t you... go anywhere!”

   What he really meant was, don’t die.

   He ran following the orange stains, which led down the stairs to an incredibly creepy hospital basement which, sure enough, there was a sewer entrance, large as life. Who the hell had designed this town? Faith had left the door open, but it was still swinging just a little. Xander pelted through it, and spotted movement under a light nearly half a block’s distance away down the tunnel.

   The stains had worn out by this time, or the light was too dim for him to see them, but he pursued the movement anyway. He never did manage to catch up to Faith, but kept seeing her at a distance as she ran unhesitatingly through the tunnels.

   Xander would have felt much better if Faith had waited for him, but he also knew that every second could count when it came to demon slaying. He really hoped he, himself, wasn’t about to have to face a demon. He was much better at the grabbing-of-tied-hostage portion of daring rescues.

   He stopped to take a break. He was winded by this time, and he was getting a little worried — wasn’t this the direction of the demon district? He was all turned around in the tunnels — when he heard the sound of babies crying in the distance. He hoped that was a good thing, and he wasn’t about to turn a corner and catch sight of an all you can eat baby buffet. When he did make it to the corner, what he actually saw startled him.

   There were the babies, laid out on a gurney like they were appetizers, and there was Faith, stake in her hand, squaring off, not against the demon who was supposed to be about to eat said babies, but against a bland faced, smiling gentleman in a suit and tie, who was regarding Faith with something like amusement.

   “Well, aren’t you a  _ feisty _ little thing!” he announced. “That was some impressive slaying!” A couple of piles of tell-tale dust told Xander Faith had already gotten into battle. The vampires in question had probably been the smarmy guy’s minions. “It really is too bad we’re on opposite sides, here,” he went on. “I could have used someone of your caliber.”

   “Of course you could,” Faith said. “You’re not the first to want to  _ use _ someone like me.”

   “Now, now, don’t you go putting those kinds of disgusting thoughts into people’s heads,” the man said, and Xander suddenly recognized him. That was the  _ Mayor! _ Xander himself never focused much on local politics, so the face hadn’t leapt out at him. “I have enough unpleasant things to think about. City waterworks. The county fair. Influenza outbreaks. Do you know how unpleasant influenza can be? I always make sure Sunnydale has plenty of vaccine, every year. Also, it’s a really easy way to get blood samples!” He laughed. “Seriously, some of the people I owe tribute to are really picky about what kind of blood I offer them. Anywho, the point is, I’ve had my eye on you, young lady. You’re not all that sold on the one-girl-in-all-the-world-fights-vampires, are you? I know my constituents sure aren’t!”

   “Oh, I think they are,” Faith said, circling round a bit.

   “Not all of them,” the Mayor said. “Sure, the human ones think a slayer running around is really good for the neighborhood, but the vampires?” He shook his head. “My old friend the Master — did you know he plays a surprisingly good game of mini-golf? Anywho, he says he’s getting a little tired of this slayer business, and you know what?” His voice took on a singsong tone of childish warning. “I kind of am, too.”

   Faith looked winded, and she was limping slightly. Had she already fought and slain the baby eating demon before Xander got there? It was looking a lot like it. What she  _ had _ done by circling was make it so the Mayor was looking away from the babies, and that was good. Xander snuck forward as quickly as he could. The kids were still screaming, which was both good and bad. It wasn’t as if the Mayor would expect them to suddenly get quiet, but he might hear them being taken away. Well.  _ Anywho. _ Getting them far away from this scene was definitely a plan.

   He set his hand on the gurney, intending to pull it away, and suddenly he couldn’t move. “I really wouldn’t do that young man,” the Mayor said. He hadn’t looked at Xander, but his hand was outstretched in his direction. “I know, eyes in the back of my head. You wouldn’t  _ believe _ what those cost to install! Or should I say,  _ who _ that cost.” He laughed. “They’re not literal,” he added.

   Xander couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t move, he couldn’t move  _ anything, _ not even his lungs. He idly wondered if his heart had stopped.

   It might have, but he was only frozen for a second or two before Faith threw something at the Mayor — her stake? He couldn’t turn his head to see — and Xander felt himself released. He had to collapse, though. His body didn’t seem to work right after that. What was the Mayor, a Dark Lord of the Sith? He sure had Vader’d Xander up there.

   “You disappoint me, young lady,” the Mayor said. “Here I was hoping for some clever banter, maybe a one on one. Instead you just throw things and spin around in circles, counting on some man,” he nodded toward Xander, “to do the heavy labor. I mean, I know you killed the demon, and all — brave work, I suppose — but where are the  _ brains _ , where is the  _ cunning? _ I’ll bet your predecessor would have had me groaning with some stupid pun by now. But then... no slayer was ever really Buffy Summers, was she?”

   “Nope,” Faith said. “But I know what I’m doing. You got to have a little Faith.” She grinned.

   “You know, you’ve used that pun before,” the Mayor said. “Don’t think I haven’t been paying attention.”

   “You haven’t,” Faith said. “Because if you had, you’d know. I didn’t slay your pet demon for you. I just put him in a choke hold.”

   With a sudden roar, a huge wormlike snake demon lunged out from a tunnel and grabbed hold of the Mayor.

   “And I’ll bet he’s a little pissed off,” Faith said.

   She crossed her arms and watched with wicked glee as the Mayor was ripped apart. When it became pretty clear the guy —  demon-wannabe, evil shaman, Sith Lord or whatever the hell he was — wasn’t going to be getting up again, Faith cracked her knuckles, stretched her neck, prepared herself for another fight, and launched herself at the snakelike baby eater.

   This was a harder fight. The demon really was pissed off at this point, and it wasn’t as if it was small to start with. The babies were screaming, the demon was roaring, Xander’s heart was pounding, and he almost blacked out a few times. As the pounding in his heart started to subside, he was able to crawl to his knees, and then his feet, and look over the babies. They seemed to all be there... small favors.

   Faith was winning the fight; again, good news. Xander shook his head and tried to shake sense back into his brain, when Faith made one more move, and plunged the makeshift spear she had made from some water pipe through the demon’s head. The demon flailed in its death throes, one connecting with Faith’s torso, and she was thrown back halfway down a tunnel.

   But the creature was dead. The spasm that had thrown Faith was the last movement it ever made. Xander tried to stand without support, and found that he actually could. Faith managed to do the same where she stood. There was a gash on her abdomen, and she looked a bit worse for the wear, but she was alive.

   “That was the Mayor,” Xander said.

   “I guessed,” Faith grunted. They stood and looked at each other, and suddenly they were both laughing. “Man. I didn’t think I’d be able to kill him! Buffy made him out to be some kind of serious Big Bad!”

   “Maybe in her world, he was,” Xander said. “Or maybe he had help he doesn’t have here.”

   “Yeah. High five, Xan-man, we beat the bad guys!”

   Xander staggered forward for his high five, and Faith made a few strides, and just before they connected, Faith jolted as if someone had struck her and staggered backwards.

   “Don’t move!” she suddenly yelled in a panic.

   Xander froze, less than three paces from her. “What is it?”

   Faith reached out gingerly and tried to touch Xander. Her hand was repelled, and the very air flashed between them. He could see it now. He’d missed the flash before — he must have blinked.

   “Oh, no.”

   “No,” Faith whispered. She tried again, pushing harder. “No. No!  _ No! _ ” She screamed it, and was suddenly throwing herself against the invisible barrier between herself and Xander. Xander stepped back instinctively, because if she somehow  _ did _ get through the barrier, she would have knocked him right into the opposite wall.

   She didn’t get through. She made one final push that knocked her flat on her back, then she dragged herself to her knees, staring at Xander.

   He knew what had happened. The Master’s field was a bubble, and there was no bright red line or security fence down here in the sewers, to warn folks away. That final throw had tossed Faith right through the barrier, and she was not going to be able to get out. Not until the Master was destroyed.

   The babies’ cries echoed in the sewer tunnels. Xander wished those cookies had worked to make _ him _ more immature than he already was. Their slayer, their protector, the only thing that was really part of their universe which stood between the vampires and the people of Sunnydale was trapped in the demon district.

   Xander wished he could cry, too.

 


	13. Chapter 13

 

   “You were just trying to run from a vampire,” Angel said, his hand around the throat of Ethan Rayne.

   “Two vampires,” Spike added.

   “And a slayer!” Buffy piped up.

   Angel glanced over at her, frowning. Spike had told him that the cookies had reverted Buffy back to how she had been at sixteen, but the smarmy git kept asking questions Spike didn’t feel like answering. Particularly since he was still a little high on human blood, and his temper was short.

   “You know, I think I can handle this, guys,” Angel told them.

   Buffy meekly stepped back. Spike  _ hated _ her like this, but fine, this was where she was. “Whatever.” He took Buffy by the arm and led her over to the table. The warehouse was stacked to the ceiling with these bespelled sugar cookies. How many people did Rayne plan on poisoning with this rubbish? What had almost happened as a result loomed over him like a dark cloud. “Are you all right, pet?” he asked.

   “I’m fine,” Buffy said. “What’s Angel doing?”

   “Taking care of your sorcerer.” 

   “We need to ask him what’s happening!” Buffy said. “We need to find out about the babies, and we need to stop Mom and Giles from getting all creepy on the hood of a police car.”

   Spike hadn’t heard that bit.

   “We don’t need to play the whole thing over, love,” he said. “You get that? I already sent Willow and Xander to look after the hospital. You told me how it went down the first time, right?”

   “I did?” She looked over at him. Her eyes didn’t seem to even know him right now. “I’m... really confused.”

   “I got that.” 

   She frowned. “Willow and Xander aren’t strong enough to stop vampires. We... maybe we should go there?”

   “You know what? What do you say we call?” Spike said. He was hoping they’d just locked the door or taken charge and taken the babies somewhere where the minions would have trouble finding them. That was what he would have done, if he knew he couldn’t fight. The truth was, Buffy was in no condition to slay anything, even if she  _ had _ been a slayer at fifteen. She kept getting distracted and confused and turning to Angel to tell her what to do. Spike wanted to punch Angel in the face every time she did that. Was that really what they had been like when they were dating? He’d only seen it from afar a few times. He knew Dru had been like that with Angel, but Dru had been conditioned to it, for years.

   What had Angel  _ done _ to Buffy? Even before losing the damn soul?

   Spike phoned up the hospital, and they put out a call for Willow Rosenberg or Xander Harris on the hospital tannoy. A few minutes later Willow was on the phone. Her voice was raw, and she was slow to speak, but she informed them that Faith had been fetched, and a slayer was on the case.

   “Faith’s on it,” Spike said. “That do you?”

   Buffy did look considerably relieved.

   “Good news.” Angel came up to them, holding Ethan Rayne by the scruff. “The majority of the cookies are still in this factory. And according to him, the fewer you’ve had, the faster it’ll wear off.”

   “Good. When did you start eating cookies, love?”

   “Um... only this afternoon,” Buffy said.

   “The cookies have been circulating for about two days,” Angel said. “But if she only started this afternoon it should be wearing off... when?” He shook Rayne. “When?”

   “In about an hour. Or two,” he said.

   “Good,” Spike said. “I can’t wait for this to fade.”

   “It doesn’t fade, it catches up,” Rayne said.

   “What was that?”

   “The spell reverts whoever ate it to a juvenile state,” he said. “Specifically, their own juvenile state. As it starts to wear off, they’ll grow back through their life.”

   Spike paused a moment to let this sink in. “Wait a moment,” he said. He grabbed Rayne out of Angel’s hands and shoved him up against a stack of cookie cases. “Right now, Buffy feels like she did at sixteen. As this starts to wear off, she’s gonna feel like she did at seventeen, and eighteen, and bloody  _ twenty? _ ”

   “Well... yes,” Rayne said. “Should take about two hours for someone at her age to catch up to—”

   “Bugger!” Spike said. He shook the blighter then threw him aside. “We gotta get back to the car.”

   “Why?” Angel asked.

   “We have to get Buffy somewhere private and calm, now.”

   “Why?”

   Spike wanted to shake Angel now. “Because if she has to go through her entire bloody life in hyperspeed, we’re all going to want her somewhere she won’t make a scene!”

   “Why would she make a scene?” Angel asked.

   “You think a slayer’s life is blood and peaches?!” Spike shouted at him. He was seeing red, as if the blood was behind his eyes. That was when he realized Ethan Rayne had crept under the desk, through a gap in the stacks of cookie cases, and had bolted again. “Bloody fucking hell!”

   He was after the bastard in a half a second, already vamped, and he was running, the bastard was running, didn’t he know you don’t run from a predator? It only gets their blood up. Spike was on the hunt already, and Rayne went down a corridor of cases, and Spike vaguely heard his old sire shouting after him, but he didn’t care. That didn’t matter, he was on the sodding  _ hunt, _ Angelus knew this was how it worked! He turned another corner, and Rayne was there, his quarry, trying to get out a door which seemed locked. Spike didn’t even waste time taunting the bugger. If he had, he probably would have thought better of it. Rayne didn’t waste time trying to beg. If he had, Spike probably would have been able to control himself. Instead, the terrified sorcerer threw something in Spike’s face, possibly only cookie crumbs, but it really didn’t matter, because it was an attack, and an attack had only one possible response, really, and Spike’s hands were around the victim’s head, and he twisted, and there was the crunch.

   It had happened so fast, really. The sound was like a thorn had been removed from Spike’s insides, as if he’d suddenly stopped feeling a pain, or a need, or something. He froze as the body dropped, the rush of the kill flooding through him. He hadn’t felt this... in so long... the thrill of a human kill... he almost groaned with the release.

   He stepped back a second later, still gasping, looking down. What... what just happened here? 

   Some part of him said,  _ It’s fine, the bastard was evil. He’d killed people, turned people into demons, poisoned the whole town, hell, he had just lent his hand to arranging for a bunch of babies to be eaten. The man was as evil as any demon or vampire you’ve ever killed or dusted. Well done you. _

   But there was another part of him saying,  _ It’s getting to you, Spike. You’ve been around casual death and torture for too long. Playing into their disregard for life is eating into your soul. Human blood and human death, it’s what you’ve been fighting to stay away from, and now it’s growing back inside you again. _

   Spike didn’t want to listen to either part of him. He hadn’t wanted this tonight! He’d wanted to come home to Buffy, and wash the taste of blood away with her kisses, and shrug off the terror, and have her take away all of the screaming. But instead he’d had to crouch inside a blessed Chrysler trying not to let it dust him, keep Angel from losing his soul, and deal with a teenage Buffy who only vaguely remembered him as if he were some ugly dream, and certainly didn’t love him. And now he was going to have to nurse her through all the rest of it.

_ So you deserved a nice justified kill, _ said some part of his mind which was trying to be rational. Unfortunately, another part was convinced that that thought wasn’t rational at all.

   His next move probably wasn’t rational either. He turned from the fallen body, and simply walked away.

   When he got back, Buffy was fawning over Angel again, who had the grace to look uncomfortable about it. “Where’s Rayne?”

   “Got away,” Spike said, and his teeth hurt him at the lie. “We don’t have time for him. I have to get Buffy home.”

   “I wanna sit with Angel again,” Buffy said.

   Spike just sighed, world weary. “Fine.” He glanced up at Angel. “Enjoy it while you can, Angel. It won’t last.”

***

 

   It didn’t last. Angel really had been enjoying it, even though he knew, at some level, it wasn’t real. It  _ had been _ real, that was the point, right? That was what this whole thing meant, that even though Buffy had grown and changed and moved on, Buffy,  _ his _ Buffy, sixteen-year-old Buffy, it meant she’d loved him, right? That it really had been true love? Wasn’t that what this meant? Even though she’d lost her Angel — they hadn’t really explained how that had happened to Angel’s satisfaction — she’d loved him, and it had been real.

   He expected Buffy to be overwhelmed with grief suddenly, as her memory/emotions told her  _ her  _ Angel was dead. Then there’d be a period of mourning, then she’d slowly grow more distant as her memories told her she’d fallen for Spike. That was what he expected.

   But as they were approaching the mansion, Buffy, who had started being particularly affectionate, nuzzling her head into his chest and humming contentedly, went softly, inexplicably still.

   Her hands closed into fists, and she pulled slowly away from Angel, staring at him in... no, that was not grief. That was horror. It... might even have been disgust. “No...” she whispered.

   She turned away, pulled to the farthest edge of the back seat, and curled up into fetal position. “Noo....” she moaned. “No, no, no, no....”

   “Bugger, it’s starting,” Spike said, glancing behind him. He slammed on the accelerator and started pressing the button on the garage door before it could possibly have linked to the sensor.

   “What’s starting? What’s happening?”

   “I’m betting she just entered the start of ‘98.”

   “This is ‘98.”

   “Yeah, right, happy birthday, Buffy,” Spike muttered. The tires squealed as he pulled into the garage. The door hadn’t had time to open, and clipped the top of the car, juddering in its track. He swept out of the car and around to open Buffy’s door. She cringed away from him, but he went down to his knees, like talking to a child. “Hey,” he said gently. “I know we’re not friends. ‘Least I feel pretty harmless right now, yeah?”

   Buffy glanced at him, and then at Angel, and then nodded as Spike put his arms around her and led her from the car.

   “What’s going on?” Angel asked.

   “Dynamics are changing, mate,” Spike said over his shoulder. “You know what’s happening, pet?”

   “Yeah,” she said. “I... I don’t want it to...”

   “I know. You just gotta get through it.”

   She burst into tears. “It’s not fair!”

   “It wasn’t the first time, and it isn’t now, I know,” he said. “Come on. Let’s get inside.”

   He put her on the couch where she cried, staring numbly into space. Angel didn’t know what to do. He came up to Buffy, but she cringed. “Get  _ away _ from me!” she shouted.

   “You’re not gonna want to get near her, mate,” Spike said. “Not right now.”

   “Should I... make some tea or something?”

   “Yeah, you do that,” Spike said, not taking his eyes off Buffy.

   Angel went into the kitchen, but he didn’t bother with the kettle or anything else. He lurked in the doorway and watched Spike with Buffy. Spike squatted on the floor before her, watching her like she was a jack in the box or something about to pop. As he watched, she suddenly looked up, gasping, and reached out to grab Spike’s hands. “Yeah,” Spike said softly. “I’m here.”

   “Thank you,” she whispered.

   A soft smile flashed over Spike’s face. “You’re welcome.”

   “Don’t let go.”

   He only nodded. She cringed then, and Angel could see her hands were gripping Spike’s tight enough to break a human being. Spike murmured to her, little endearments, and Angel’s ears caught a noise from upstairs. Ugh, not now. He ignored it, trusting that Spike was too busy to care right now, anyway.

   Whatever Buffy was going through now, she was enduring it, though her breathing was labored. She kept staring into Spike’s eyes the whole time, then she grunted. “Oh, no... no, no, not again....”

    She looked over at Angel, her eyes desperate and pleading and tragic, and Spike very gently turned her head back to him. “Probably best to just look here,” he said gently.

   She closed her eyes. “I don’t want to look at all....” She started rocking and rocking, and then moaned. “Oh, god!”

   “Riley?”

   “Faith,” Buffy said. “And... ugh!” She clutched at her throat. “No, god. I hate this!”

   “I know, I know.”

   She shivered and whimpered and gasped, but she made it through whatever was happening with her emotions. Her breathing began to even out. “There you are,” she said after a bit longer. “Okay... okay. God, you’re confusing.”

   Spike laughed low. “Don’t I know it.”

   Very suddenly she leaned forward and kissed him. She blinked at him when she pulled away. “Uh... sorry.”

   “I’m not. I got you.”

   “Would you hold me?” she begged, letting herself fall off the couch. “I have to deal with ‘99, and then Mom is...”

   Spike carefully gathered Buffy into his arms, and started rocking her, back and forth. She shivered and shuddered, and suddenly she moaned, and buried her head in his chest. Spike stroked her hair and kissed her forehead. “It’s all right. It’s gonna be all right, pet. And hey, she’s gonna be just fine here, right? That’s a bonus.”

   She nodded. “It helps.”

   Her voice sounded so small, and so young. Angel came forward. She was remembering her mom’s death. Why the hell couldn’t he be here for her, too? What was Spike playing at?

   “Dawn!” Buffy cried out suddenly.

   “Shh, it’s all right. You know she’s safe,” Spike said.

   “But she’s so....”

   “She’s fine,” Spike said. “And we’ll get back to her, right?”

   Buffy nodded and then cringed, tensing her body as if in terrible pain. And then, to Angel’s surprise, she relaxed. She relaxed completely, it almost looked like she’d fallen asleep.

   Spike, however, was not relieved. He shifted the two of them so there was plenty of clear space, and looked tense.

   “Is it over?”

   “Eye of the storm, mate. And you’re gonna want to step back.”

   “What’s happened to her?”

   “My bet is this is where she died.”

   “She... wait, she...?”

   And suddenly Buffy screamed. Angel jumped away from it, startled. She screamed and screamed in Spike’s arms, as if the world was ending, as if someone were torturing her, and Angel took another step back, both horrified and fascinated. Some part of him still enjoyed witnessing emotional torture, and this certainly did look like that... but he also hated that part of himself, was utterly disgusted by it, and this was  _ Buffy _ . It was wrong of him to want to see her tortured....

   Of course, quite a lot of Angel was wrong. And he knew it.

   Spike held her tightly, very tightly, more tightly than Angel would have been doing it. It didn’t look like anyone could find it comforting, it looked like it could bruise her. “I got you, I got you, I got you,” Spike whispered.

   “Shut up!” Buffy barked at him.

   He shut, but he kept holding her, and then suddenly Buffy hit him. He didn’t let go, and Angel was confused that he’d stay, but then she hit him again, knocked him backwards, and kissed him hard, straddling him.

   Angel felt awkward. Buffy was undulating lasciviously over Spike’s body, and it seemed like it was something that should be happening in private, or... or something. Buffy lifted her head and hit Spike hard in the face. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “God, I’m sorry.”

   “It’s okay,” Spike said. “I know.”

   She kissed him again, and sobbed. Then she relaxed, sagging against him.

   Spike looked uncomfortable. “I should... before—”

    “No, stay,” Buffy told him. She curled up in his arms. “I don’t want to be alone. Just a bit longer....”

   “Okay.” He kept his arms around her, kissing her forehead now and again, his face tight with tension.

   And then Buffy looked up. Angel had never seen that look on anyone’s face. There was such rage and fury and... pure hatred in it. “Let. Go. Now,” she said darkly.

   And Spike backed the hell away. He left her alone and abandoned on the floor and stood almost as far away from her as he could, grabbing Angel and sticking him behind him.

   “What the hell is happening?” Angel demanded.

   “This is where I screwed up, mate,” Spike said, his face grim. “She’s on her own now.”

   Buffy was curled up, her arms and head cradled on her knees, rocking again, very gently, as she worked through... whatever she was working through now. It had looked awful, that darkness on her face. Though... strangely not as bad as whatever had made her attack Spike in the first place. “What do we do?”

   “Wait for her to come to me,” Spike said evenly. He took a few steps closer to her and knelt with his knees spread on the ground, his eyes fixed on her. It was such a posture of patience that Angel was surprised. Persistence, yes, he expected that from Spike, but patience? He hadn’t thought the fellow capable of it.

   Eventually, Buffy looked up from the knot she had made of herself, her face tear streaked, but surprisingly calm. It was a very different face than it had been earlier in the night. This was almost, but not quite, the Buffy Angel had been seeing this last week or so. There was a serenity to her, harsh in its stillness, but she looked a little lost. She stared into space for a long moment, and then glanced at the two of them, Angel standing by the wall, Spike kneeling patiently, his eyes fixed on her.

   Very, very slowly she uncurled, and crawled, actually crawled forward, and put herself back into Spike’s arms.

   They both sighed. “There we go, pet,” he said.

   “I take it the worst is over?” Angel asked quietly.

   “Not quite,” Spike said. “I’m about to die in a bit.”

   “What?”

   “Long story,” he said.

   “I’ll probably just cry,” Buffy said quietly. “It was a good death. I was so proud of you….” She was crying a bit already, but it was sort of… peaceful. “I think I’ll be okay now.” She looked up at Spike. “Would you take me to bed?”

   “Yeah.” He picked Buffy up, like a new bride — just like Angel had wanted to do earlier — and started carrying her toward the stairs.

   Angel was pretty disgusted. “Is sex really what she needs right now?” he asked low.

   Spike looked at him with scorn. “Bed is not sex,” Spike said. “And even if it was.... You know what? Just sod off, Angel.”

   Angel shut up. He had already come to the conclusion that whatever had happened between Spike and Buffy, whatever their relationship had been, it was bigger and deeper and more complicated than anything he could possibly have envisioned. It was not a basically widowed woman slowly warming to a man who reminded her of her late partner. The relationship Buffy had with Spike had little to nothing to do with her history with Angel.

   And it was very, very real.

   He swallowed and rubbed at his arms, confused. Something had happened between him and Buffy. Something that made her pull away from him. Something... something he couldn’t understand.

   He was contemplating actually making that tea, or something, anything, when the door opened and Xander came in. He wasn’t wearing vamp-gear, which surprised Angel. He smelled of newborn baby, and looked a bit in shock. Spike had filled Angel in on the details of the night, so he wasn’t surprised at the baby smell, but Xander’s expression worried him. “Everything all right? You managed to stop the tribute okay?”

   “Yeah,” Xander said. “The babies are all fine. You need to come with me.”

   “What for?”

   “It’s Faith.”

 


	14. Chapter 14

 

   “You couldn’t have asked the demon to throw you the other direction?” Angel asked with gentle humor.

   “I thought about it,” Faith said. “But I decided, last second, you know what I really need? To be imprisoned with a whole bunch of murderous monsters and start counting down the seconds to my doom. I figured that was the  _ best _ life choice I could make now, you know?”

   Angel chuckled and went back to tending the gouge on her belly. “I don’t think it needs stitches,” he said. “Not with slayer healing.”

   “Good thing,” Faith said. “The hospital is a bridge too far. Or, what, ten or twelve blocks too far?”

   “Something like that. Are you sure this is the best plan?”

   “It’s the only one I got,” Faith said. She took hold of Angel’s hand and squeezed it. “I’m glad Xander found you.”

   “Me too,” he said. “I got everything you asked for. I could have gotten more, but—”

   “I’m gonna need to travel light,” Faith said. “Shame I can’t just claim a house and call it mine.”

   Angel shook his head. “Everything here belongs to the Master. There are no private homes in this district.”

   “I figured,” Faith said. She looked inside the brand new black backpack Angel had provided. Inside was medical equipment, some underwear and socks, protein bars, extra stakes, a dagger, a Swiss Army knife, a small flashlight, and several vials of holy water, which could work for fighting vampires, and she could drink if she couldn’t get to a tap that worked. The Mayor had kept the demon district fully connected to water and electricity, but there was no guarantee the deputy mayor would do the same.

   Angel also had a jacket for her, which she tied around her hips. She raided the backpack, put the Swiss Army knife and the lighter in her jeans pockets, and made sure one of the stakes was easy to grab out the top. The dagger had a belt-loop on its sheath. She hooked it onto her belt, and shoved another stake in by her hip.

   “How’d you get the blade in?” Faith asked. The backpack and most of the other items had been paper or cotton or some other form of organic, and those that weren’t were small enough that the field didn’t recognize them wrapped in cotton, but large blades like the dagger were notorious for being stuck outside. Angel sighed and lifted up his shirt, revealing the deep puncture wound in his side. He’d carried the blade in within his body.

   “Dayammm!” Faith said. “Sure  _ you _ don’t need stitches?” 

   “Didn’t even feel it,” he lied, and she knew he was lying, but they also both knew he’d ultimately be fine. 

   “Thanks,” she said again. “What’s in that one?” she asked of Angel’s other bag.

   “Well,” he said. “I’m hoping it’s not the last supper, but....” He opened it up and pulled out a styrofoam carton he’d picked up from Faith’s favorite restaurant. “You did say bring steaks.”

   Faith laughed, and Angel pulled out the bottles of coke he’d also brought. “Don’t suppose you got any whiskey?” she asked.

   “You need to stay on your toes, or I would have.” He frowned at her. “I can stay with you, you know. Two fight better than one.”

   “One hides better than two,” Faith said. “I figured I’ll stay down here in the sewers at night, where they’re not expecting anyone to be, and head back up to some building with windows when the day comes. If Buffy walks the perimeter for me, it might be a few days before they realize I’m stuck in here.”

   They both knew what would happen then. The vampires would attack in force, and get her cornered.

   “How’s Spike doing getting that scythe thing?”

   “He’s a little distracted tonight,” Angel said. “Buffy got poisoned with the others.”

   “Bummer,” Faith said.

   “But from what I’ve overheard spying at the Bronze, they’re excited for the dig,” he said. “They’re convinced this will be the device that kills you.”

   “They probably won’t need it,” Faith said with grim certainty.

   “Hey. Don’t think like that.”

   “Kendra never walked out of this place,” Faith said. “I  _ need _ to think like that.” She swallowed. “Look. I hate my parents, but if I croak... just send them each a postcard about it, right?”

   “I’ll let Giles do that,” he said. “But yeah, I’ll tell him.”

   “Great.” Faith cut the steak with her dagger and grinned. “Forgot silverware?”

   “Uh...”

   “It’s okay.” She grabbed a morsel of twice-baked potato in three fingers and shoveled it into her mouth. “I can make this work.”

   Angel laughed, but it was really sad. He was truly terrified. What if this really was the last time he watched Faith eat? They were safe enough for now, but the vampires would find her here in the tunnels if she stayed, and could she really move around the demon district safely? “We need to talk food and supplies,” he said. He pulled a map he’d already marked up out from of the side flap in her backpack. “I’ve identified a few places where I could leave caches.”

   “Rooftops,” Faith said. “Right in the sunlight. It’ll be exposed, but I’ll know I’m not being ambushed. Maybe we could disguise them or something? Put them in garbage bags, so they just look like junk?”

   “That could work. But I really don’t like the idea of you being here alone.”

   “They need you out there, to tell them what’s going on. Spike can’t break cover. If I really need anything, maybe I can get a message to him. We should give him a few drop-spots where I could leave him a note or something.” She chewed on her lip. “Can we really trust him?”

   “You’re asking this  _ now? _ ” Angel asked.

   “My life wasn’t hanging on him before,” Faith said. “Not like this. I have two potential allies in this place, you, and him, and if I dare come to either of you, it’s because I’m up against the wall. If I come to him, I have to be sure he’s not gonna drop the ball.”

   Angel’s first impulse was to dismiss Spike, like he always had.  _ He’s just a reckless, ignorant puppy, I’m sure he’s gonna screw up. _ But the truth was, he knew Spike was better than that. He’d trained him to be better than that, as a wing-man he was able to rely on completely, who would read his expressions in a fight and do exactly what was needed, without question and without complaint. At least, not when it counted. He knew Spike was unfailingly loyal, unflinchingly brave, undeniably determined, and would willingly die for those he cared about. And that was all when he’d been evil. 

   The truth was... fighting with him this evening, chasing down that sorcerer... yeah. He’d forgotten how much he liked having Spike around. He’d missed him when he got his soul and had to abandon him and Drusilla along with Darla and the evil. Now that Spike had a soul too... it was kind of nice.

   “He’s the most reliable partner anyone could ever have,” Angel said quietly.

   Faith raised her eyebrow at the change of tone. “Something happen tonight?”

   “Buffy... something happened to Buffy. In her life. I don’t know what, but... it was clearly really hard on her. And Spike... was there for her. You could see it, in her face, in the way they were together.” Angel swallowed. “I _ wasn’t _ there for her, and he was. Somehow, in that universe, that was what happened. It....”

   The truth was, it looked as if Spike and Buffy’s History had become bigger than Angel and Buffy’s Destiny. As if it didn’t matter if Angel and Buffy were  _ meant to be together _ or if the Powers That Be had decided they were to love each other. The terror and the screaming and the rage and the tenderness and the staunch support and... and the lust between Buffy and Spike. And those smiles, the tender humor in it. All of those had seemed so much bigger than the pretty little destiny he’d been nursing.

   “They’re in love,” he finally managed.

   “Yeah, I kinda figured that out in the first hour,” Faith said.

   Angel shook his head.

   “But you didn’t want to,” she added more gently.

   Angel looked down. “It’s okay. She’s not my Buffy. I get that now. With  _ my _ Buffy... I mean. I know it all would have worked out if I’d had _ my  _ Buffy. It’s just....”

   “You’ve finally let this one go?”

   “I know. You’re gonna say I shouldn’t have been holding on to this one in the first place.”

   Faith pursed her lips sympathetically, but didn’t say anything.

   “I’m gonna miss you at home.”

   “Eh, B’s living there now, you should still be protected from the other vamps,” Faith said, looking down the corridor.

   “You know that’s not why.”

   Faith turned to look at him, and smiled. Very slowly, she shunted her dinner aside and crawled over to Angel, onto his lap, straddling him on her knees.

   “Faith, that’s not what I—”

   “I know,” she said. “Too soon, anyway. I just wanted a hug.” She fell onto him, and he put his arms around her. She was warm and human and even with her strength, she had a vulnerability. Why  _ hadn’t  _ he ever wanted anything to happen with him and Faith? Then he realized what it was. At some level, he had been waiting for Buffy to come back... as if Destiny hadn’t really played out yet, and he was still supposed to be with her.

   Well, Destiny had dropped Buffy back into his life again, and no. That was over, wasn’t it? It had been over... since his own Buffy had died. Suddenly he knew he would no longer be sketching drawings of Buffy when he needed to relax. Obsessing over her like that... it hadn’t been good for him. And he’d been keeping himself blind to what was right before his eyes....

   The slayer he might be about to lose again. He’d been with Kendra when she died, but he’d never been close to her. (She had tried to kill him when they first met. It hadn’t been the best beginning for a set of allies.) Kendra did not hang out and talk, she did not understand relationships, and she had a hard time even looking at men, particularly men her own age. He and Kendra had worked together, but they had never been friends. When Drusilla had killed her, he’d almost been more concerned about his offspring than he had about the death of the slayer.

   His arms around Faith tightened, and he squeezed her so hard she grunted. “Hey, strong man,” she chuckled. “Trying to kill yourself a slayer?”

   “Just try not to die,” he whispered into her ear. “Just promise me. I know this is gonna be really hard, it’s hell in here. If you get killed, that’s one thing. But don’t  _ let _ yourself die.”

   Faith pulled away and looked down at him. “ _ Now _ you get all protective,” she said. “If you keep changing your tune on me, Angelboy, I may just have to steak you.” She reached down and picked up a center piece of her cut up steak and popped it into his mouth.

   He laughed as the rare meat tickled his tongue.

   “I’m not gonna let myself die,” she promised. “You need to have Faith.”

 

***

   “Ow.”

   “You okay?”

   “No, it was perfect.”

   “I think we broke another bed.”

   “Poor innocent thing,” Buffy muttered.

   “Well, not anymore.”

   He hadn’t planned on fucking her tonight — because this had been hard, serious, desperate fucking, not sweet tender lovemaking — but that was what had happened. He’d put her down in the bed, and snuggled up beside her, and held her carefully while she cried, and then... he’d sort of broken inside. He wasn’t sure exactly what it was that broke. The last five days of hell inside the Master’s field, or the human blood he’d been partaking of, or the stress of having to deal with Buffy’s poisoning — both the general effects and the side-effect of potential evil Angel — or (and he suspected this was probably it) the first voluntary human kill he’d performed in half a decade, but he’d turned into some quivering jellyfish creature inside, toxic to touch and formless and painful. He’d been shaking a little, trying to keep it down, whatever the hell it was. His hands were clenched, and his body was tense, and he  _ needed _ ... something.

    Then Buffy looked up, reading his body like he knew she could, and had simply said, “Yes.”

   He’d had her down so hard, so fast, it probably would have broken an ordinary human. She’d cried out, but hadn’t tried to stop him, just groaned with happily received pain. Whatever she had been wearing, it was shreds in seconds, and he wasn’t even sure how his trousers had come open, but she was his, he had taken her back again, and there was nothing but the feeling of this, between them, power and pain and pleasure and passion.

   It had been incredibly rough, taking turns, winning and losing the fight. There were bitemarks and bruises and abrasions. Bones had creaked and muscles torn, and it was exactly what they’d both wanted, but they could hardly move now. He could hear Buffy’s heart racing. He shifted a little on the bed — yeah, it was broke. The mattress listed at an absurd angle — and dragged her like a doll closer to him.

   He barely had the strength for it. Thank god they were really on the same side, because if they ever had an actual  _ fight _ it would probably last for days, and come out with neither on top. She chuckled at his kittenish weakness, and took pity, allowing herself to flop over half on top of him. “Ow,” she said again, with a bit of a laugh.

   Spike lifted one hand and very listlessly stroked her tangled hair.  _ I killed your sorcerer, _ he imagined himself saying.  _ I snapped his neck so fast I couldn’t stop myself. And it felt even better than this. _

   That wasn’t entirely true. The initial rush of the kill  _ had _ felt stronger, instinctually, but this encompassed everything, instinct and love and his very soul. But the kill. He knew it was like a drug. Just like the blood was like a drug. He’d heard the crunch, he’d felt that rush, for one second the kill had been pure....

   Pure evil.

_ You have to get me out of there, pet. I’m gonna lose it. _

   It seemed like such a waste.

   Maybe things would be better once they’d started the actual dig?

   “I’m sorry,” she murmured. “For putting you through all of it again.”

   “I’m damn sorry you had to  _ go _ through it all again,” he said. “Once was more than enough.”

   “It was,” she said. She shook her head. “It wouldn’t have been such a problem if I hadn’t been such a coward,” she confessed. “I’ll tell Angel in the morning. All of it.”

   Spike let his hand land on her shoulder. “Sounds like a good idea.”

   “I’m sorry,” she said again.

   “Just tell me you love me.” God, he hated saying this! Why did he feel the need to beg for this all of a sudden? He knew how she felt, and he also knew it was hard for her to say. Bloody hell, what was  _ wrong _ with him?

   “I love you beyond words,” she said softly, and she placed her hand on his chest. She’d scratched him. “It’s in the blood.”

   “I’ve had to take it,” he told her suddenly. He hadn't been sure he was going to. “I’ve had to drink....”

   “I thought you might,” she said. “I was hoping....”

   “Yeah, me too,” Spike said. “But it got too hard to stop them. The soul means I have to keep proving myself. Usually I can do it with mere violence against them, but….” He trailed off. 

   “Have they made you kill anyone?”

   He hesitated. “No....”

   “Tell me if they do. I don’t know how... the thing is, Angel says some of those people... trapped and... hurt... are probably... um....”

   “Better off dead?” Spike asked. “Yeah. I’ve... had that thought. A few times.”

   “If the choice is getting caught, or... well.” She swallowed. “God, I hate this. Use your own judgement.” She looked up at him. “I won’t judge you.”

   Spike gazed into her eyes, shadowed with trauma from earlier in the night. “It does things to you. Killing. I  _ need _ you to judge me.”

   “Then I will when it’s over,” she said. “We have to end this. We have to.”

   “Ends justify the means?”

   “No,” she said. “Not at all. That’s the point. Wrong is wrong.” She gently touched his face. “It’ll just all be wrong, until it’s over. That’s all.”

   Spike swallowed. “I don’t want to lose myself. I don’t want... you to have ‘98 all over again. Not for real.”

   “You’re not going to lose your soul. There’s no gypsy curse, and even if there was, this is no perfect happiness.”

   Spike swallowed, ashamed of himself. Yes, Rayne was evil, but... the kill had felt so damn good. Humans were what the demon in him  _ wanted _ to kill, more than anything else. It scared him.

   But he couldn’t quite say it, even as the words pounded over and over again in his head.  _ There’s more than one way to lose a soul. _

***    

 

   “You can lose your soul,” Buffy said.

   Angel looked up from his half empty mug of blood. The blood and bagels business breakfast they’d shared this morning had been subdued, and almost painfully short. Spike had had to get back to the demon district, and Angel had to tell him about Faith before he did. Spike now knew the secret signals and places for secret messages that Angel and Faith had worked out, which Spike would have to know if she needed his help in the district. Finally Spike had headed through the sewers, and Angel had expected Buffy to get ready for work. She... to put it delicately, looked like she could use a long hot soak in a bathtub. She had new bruises it looked like needed soothing.

   Angel was done trying to pass judgement on any of it. It wasn’t his business anymore.

   But instead of getting ready for work, Buffy had seen Spike off, and then sat down right in front of Angel. And dropped this bombshell.

   He was convinced he’d heard her wrong. “What was that?”

   “Your curse,” she said. “The soul is not stable. It’s just held there by the curse, and the curse has an escape clause.”

   Angel blinked. Why was he only finding out about this  _ now? _ There was a time in his life when he would have been thrilled by this news. Now... now he had a purpose, and a reason, and... and destiny. And friends. Now that soul was  _ important _ . It made him different, better. Stronger than humans or other vampires. It was... something he treasured. When had that happened, anyway? In any case, it was done now. His curse had become his treasure, and he wasn’t about to throw it away. 

   “Well, that’s... it doesn’t matter,” he said. “I don’t want to get rid of it anymore.”

   “I know that,” she said. “That’s the problem. You can lose it by accident.”

   Angel was confused. “How... that doesn’t make sense.”

   “I know. I never thought it did, either, it seemed really sloppy to me. But I’m not the person to complain to about it.”

   “Well, who would be?” Angel said, joking, but Buffy took him seriously.

   “I can put you in touch with them, if you’d like, but later. The important thing is, that you have to know you can lose it, and that terrible things can happen if you do.”

   He shook his head. “Buffy, I’ve had this soul long enough, there’s  _ nothing _ that would faze me. I’ve had it longer than most humans even live. Even if it did go away....” God, he couldn’t believe that was even possible. “I’d still be good. Don’t worry about it.”

   “Yeah, well, Angel, I do worry about it, because I have to. We both do. And no, you actually wouldn’t be good.”

   He was starting to get annoyed now. “Yes. I would.”

   Buffy actually smiled. “Angel? You know how you talk about your past, and you say, ‘But I was a different person then’?”

   “Well... yes. I was.”

   “Yeah, that’s the point. You’ve spent so long doing that, so long disassociating yourself from the crimes you committed, you don’t feel like the same guy. You gave the soul its own identity, even changed your name to go with it, and without it? You’re just not the same anymore.”

   “Buffy. I’m not going to lose my soul and forget everything.”

   “But you’ll stop caring,” she said.

   He stood up, angry now, and accidentally spilled his blood. “You don’t know that!”

   She only stared at him, those green eyes bright within her haggard face. The blood slowly pooled across the table, a dark red stain telling him... yes. She probably did. “Sit down, Angel,” she finally said.

   Angel did, slowly, and realized where the anger was coming from. He was... terrified.

   “I don’t know exactly how it works,” she said. “My guess is it’s like what happened to me last night. When you lose your soul you still remember everything, but it all seems like a dream, and none of it is important the way it was when you had it. So you do things you would never do, even though at some level you know you should know better.” She shook her head. “I knew what I was doing last night with you was wrong. But I couldn’t believe it, because everything that told me it was wrong didn’t seem real.”

   “It wasn’t wrong, Buffy,” Angel said seriously. “It... may not have been  _ right. _ It’s not our time, and you’re with someone else, but... it wasn’t wrong. It was just... misplaced.”

   “No,” Buffy said. “If it was just wanting to make love to you, that would have been... well, complicated, but not what I mean. The thing is, at some level, I knew what could happen. And I couldn’t make myself care, because I was sixteen, and all that had to have been a terrible dream.”

   “All  _ what _ had been a terrible dream?”

   And Buffy began to speak.

   Angel drifted into a state that was probably shock, even though it happened so slowly he wasn’t sure exactly when he got there. Only a few parts leaped out at him. A claddagh ring. Buffy’s birthday. Her virginity. What that meant. The crimes she then reported blurred together — various victims and attacks, mind games and torture. A few stood out. Jenny Calendar. What he did to Giles after. Kendra, dead at his orders.... Then Buffy herself, as she’d stabbed him through the heart and sent him into hell.

   How long he’d been there, Buffy wasn’t sure. For herself, it wasn’t long at all. Angel wanted to say, of course, it was all fine after that, right? But of course, as Buffy pointed out, continuing on, it wasn’t. Because he could lose his soul again.

   As she went on, bringing in her version of Faith, he grew even more confused, but finally she came to what appeared to be the final end of their relationship. He had nearly killed her. She had nearly killed Faith for him. And he had nearly killed Buffy.

   “You left, then,” she said. “Life went on, but you never really left me alone. I think you weren’t used to obsessing about someone, and then letting them be, so you kept circling my life, and getting in the way... a lot. And I was too young and in love with you to really understand how to stop you.”

   Angel swallowed, only able to latch on to one word of that. “Love?” he asked. He took a deep breath, and it was shaky. “But it was love? It was... real?”

   Buffy regarded him evenly for a long moment, and yes... that was sympathy in her eyes. Hell, it might even have been pure pity. “Falling in love with you was the worst thing that ever happened to me. All it ever did from the very beginning was cause me pain and heartache. I never really recovered from it. I never learned how to simply  _ love _ , without it causing pain. I found myself gravitating toward evil and abusive men, because that seemed normal to me. But yes.” She stood up. “I did love you. The other you, at least. And as you saw last night, there’s a sixteen year old girl inside me who still does. But she grew up. She had to.”

   She placed a warm hand on his shoulder and he barely felt it. Only yesterday, it would have caused a thrill to run through him. “I’m sorry, Angel.”

   She went toward the stairs. “Abusive,” he asked. She had those bruises.... “Spike...?”

   Buffy looked sad. “By the time I let myself turn to Spike, I was so messed up,  _ I _ abused  _ him _ . Dreadfully. And he let me, because he loved me too much to stop me... and someone... somewhere... had taught him that was normal, too.” Angel cringed. He already knew who that had been. “I twisted him up so badly, he eventually made a mistake so horrible, he felt he had to go get a soul, so he wouldn’t screw up again. It helped, in its way. He saved the world with it once. We found each other again after, and I never looked back.” She chuckled. “Well, not from any position that made me want to relive it all again.” She glanced around the mansion with a bit of an eye roll, and shrugged.

   “And his soul...?”

   “Seared into his being,” Buffy said. “It’s fixed. It can’t be removed — at least, I don’t think it can. Certainly happiness won’t do it.”

   “You’re telling me that I can’t... ever...?”

   “Make love, no,” she said. “There’s some indication that that’s not  _ quite _ how that works, since he’s had girlfriends since, and he still has a soul. But he’s also lost it again, at least once, so it’s still pretty volatile.”

   “Wait, he lost it twice?”

   “Willow put it back,” she said. “Both times. But that’s not really important. If you lose it in the first place, people die. That’s the truth of it. People die. Because really, Angel? How many times in a day do you actually want to kill?”

   Angel couldn’t help it. It broke. All the crystalline shock he’d been nurturing since Buffy had started her story shattered. It turned out it had been a dam, and had been holding back the tears. He tried to force them back, ashamed of himself, embarrassed by the emotion, horrified by the tale, grieved for her pain. And terrified.  _ Terrified. _ If he had taken Buffy last night…. If he had decided to comfort Faith in the sewer with more than a mere hug.... If there had been anything between them in these last few months, as their friendship had grown and deepened. If....

   If his own Buffy had lived.

   He sobbed, his soul — cursed thing! — wounded by what he already knew was the truth.

   “I’m sorry, Angel,” she said again.

   God, those words were so inadequate. He hoped to god she wouldn’t try to touch or comfort him, because it would break him. She didn’t, but she didn’t abandon him, either. She stood, one hand on the counter, just... there. Her face was very calm, and very kind.

   And he couldn’t bear it. There was only one person in the world who could understand the horror and confusion he was feeling right now, and it wasn’t a slayer.

   He ran, past her, up the stairs, up another flight, through the door into the attic, and all the way across the mansion, to the vault at the end of the hall. He unlocked it with shaking hands, barely able to see through the tears, and finally flung it open, panting, still terrified, unable to think.

   The vampire on the bed laughed gently within her chains, a wicked glee tickling through her madness. “Ah, my Angel,” Drusilla purred. “Did the naughty slayer tell you the truth at last?”


	15. Chapter 15

 

_ Good morning. Well, hello there. What exactly happened last night? Well, bugger. _

   Those were some of the things Giles was debating saying to the naked woman curled up beside him in the bed.

   It had been a pretty impressive evening. They’d gotten up to all sorts of hijinks, and taking out the copper had just been the start of it. He glanced around the room, and his eyes caught on the things he and Joyce had managed to acquire the night before. The coat and hat he’d stolen from the shop window; a large inflatable pineapple; a reflective orange traffic cone (because it’s not a good night if you don’t get a traffic cone). Bloody hell. What sort of mischief did they get up to?

   Trouble was, the cookie hangover — it had to be the cookies. This had to be that incident Buffy had warned them about, which she had said was going to be chocolate. He really should have mentioned the current political climate surrounding chocolate imports — wasn’t exactly like an alcohol hangover, and there was no blissful blackout to hide behind. He knew exactly what he had done with Buffy’s mother, in great and sordid detail, and the terrible thing was, she still felt good lying beside him.

   Blimey, he had a  _ girlfriend! _

   Or did he? When he thought on Jenny he felt almost no affection at all, despite the fact that he had been very much in love with her once. But he’d been in love with someone who hadn’t existed, since she had been wearing a coat of lies for more than two years. And even with the woman who  _ had _ existed, they hadn’t been getting on very well for months.

   He’d also had terrible dreams. It was as if he’d just woken up into a flash-forward version of the last four years, feeling every gut punch he’d had to suffer through as if it were happening right now, including Buffy’s death, and Kendra’s, and his simmering resentment and disappointment in Faith, which he felt terribly guilty for, but there it was. He mostly just lay there, with Joyce in his arms, and endured it, though her presence he’d found oddly comforting.

   It seemed to have passed, now, the final cookie-aftertaste, and Joyce was stirring.

   He went through the possibility of things he could say again, and ended up saying none of them, because Joyce actually awoke in tears.

   Oh, god. She hated him. She regretted last night in its entirety. Did she feel violated? He’d been just as sugar-pissed as she was! But when he did open his mouth, maybe to apologize, or maybe to ask what he could do, Joyce spoke first.

   “Buffy,” she whispered.

   Oh, god, she had woken just in the middle of fresh grief.

   Giles pulled her closer against him and let her cry into his chest, and... bugger. If there had been any residual affection for Jenny, this utterly destroyed it.

   Joyce seemed to be okay after about ten or fifteen minutes of tears, just long enough for Giles’ alarm to go off. Giles started, and then chuckled. “Just ten more minutes, Mum. I don’t want to go to school.”

   Joyce laughed against his chest, and wiped the last of the tears off her face while he turned off the alarm.

   “Morning,” he said after that.

   “Good morning,” Joyce said, a little awkwardly, but their bodies were still tangled together so... awkwardness seemed silly. “Well that was... uh... unexpected. Um. What exactly happened?”

   “I think we were drugged,” Giles informed her, and filled her in on the details.

   “Oh.” Her hand was on his chest, and it moved a little bit, and her fingers.... Her hand felt so....

   “Were you really such a wild hair when you were young?”

   “I’m afraid I was,” Giles said. “It... got a lot of people in trouble. Including some very dear friends of mine.” He shook his head. “I’m not proud of it.”

   “I was boring,” Joyce said.

   “I didn’t think so.”

   Joyce blushed. “I... should probably go pay for that jacket.”

   “And the window,” Giles grunted.

   “Or....” Joyce flipped over and stared at the ceiling. “Screw it. They got insurance.”

   Giles gazed at her.

   “So none of last night was real?” she asked the ceiling.

   “A lot of it felt real to me,” Giles said quietly.

   Joyce turned back to him. “But it wasn’t,” she said. “We... can’t just pretend it was.”

   Giles nodded. Of course. Also, Joyce hated him, and he did not blame her resentment in the least. Made sense. He’d kept her daughter’s calling from her. He’d thought he was protecting her.... Even though after holding her this morning, he wondered if it might not have been kinder to have shared her grief more openly.

   “But you know what? We shouldn’t pretend it never happened, either,” she said. “It’s just... it wasn’t... who either of us really are.”

   Giles lifted himself up on his elbow and gazed down at her. Her hair was lovely in the morning light... wispy and soft and so very bright.... Gracious, she reminded him of Buffy. But she wasn’t Buffy, she was Joyce, Buffy’s mother, sweet and funny and tender and sad....

   “Ripper, would you.... Rupert. Would you like to get to know who I really am?”

   “I think I would,” he said evenly. “Very much so.”

   “So. We should forget this night ever happened, and go back to our lives. And... um... S-Saturday? Late lunch, after the parade?”

   “Or I could cook you dinner,” Giles said, and almost blushed. The truth was, no one really went out on late-night dates in Sunnydale these days unless it was in a private home. Even those restaurants that stayed open only offered take out, through locked doors and tiny blessed windows.

   She considered that for a moment. “Friday?”

   That was tomorrow.

   “I’d like that,” Giles said.

   “Good.” She was about to get up out of the bed when Giles took hold of her arm.

   “What do you say we forget last night ever happened in, say... forty minutes?”

   Joyce hesitated, then a smile slowly crept over her face as she lay back down. “Why, Ripper. I’m not at all sure you grew out of that bad boy thing after all.”

***

   “So, you really think the bad-boy image is where you want to go with this?” Buffy asked.

   “Well....” Andrew looked confused. He was only just fifteen, and he’d only put the leather on the day before. It had made him look more like a coat rack than a punk. “I, uh... well... that is, my brother Tucker, he says I’m too effeminate, and he’s probably right, so I thought... I’d go with the black leather and spikes thing.”

   It looked stupid on him, and Buffy had the feeling he knew it, but didn’t know what else to do. Andrew, as Buffy had always known, was like a mushroom, and easily picked up the flavor of those around him. But he was also painfully shy, and disappeared into stories far too easily, and was desperate for attention, let alone affection. And apparently his brother didn’t like the possibility of the boy being gay, which had to screw up a guy. She had determined that the dark direction Andrew’s life had taken in her world would be pretty easy to deflect if she just got him hooked up with a different circle of friends.

   The truth was, he looked so ridiculous in the spikes, she was pretty sure it was just gonna get him beat up. He would have been safer just coming out.

_ Getting beat up _ and  _ coming out _ had come together in her head yesterday before the cookie incident, and she’d scheduled this meeting. “I was just thinking, you seem to be having difficulty making friends here.”

   “Well, I... I’m fine,” Andrew said. “I... I have Tucker, and... well. He... he says I can hang out with him, if I don’t, you know, stand too close when other people come around him, because he’d rather talk to them, and... well....”

   “Your brother is... mean spirited,” Buffy said. “I’ve noticed this about him.”

   He didn’t try to deny it. He just looked down.

   A gentle knock sounded on her office door. “Ah. Andrew, there’s someone I’d like you to meet.”

   Andrew looked up as Buffy welcomed Larry into the room.

   Larry’s history was much the same as it had been in her world — she’d checked with Xander — and while he’d started a bully, he’d accepted that he was gay and was slowly coming out to everyone around him. And accepting himself had made him a gentle, courteous, and friendly young man, who was still a bad-ass on the sporting field that no one would dare to bully around. “Larry, I’d like you to meet Andrew,” Buffy said. “He’s the young man I told you about yesterday?”

   “Awesome,” Larry said. He held his hand out to Andrew. “It’s really great to meet you, bro. Heard you were having a little trouble fitting in.”

   “Um....” Andrew was already blushing.

   “Hey, it’s okay, new school, brother with his own group of friends. I get it. Ms. Summers here was wondering if you’d be okay taking me as your mentor?” Larry laughed. “I mean, that’s kinda dumb. We can just be friends, if you’d like.”

   Andrew finally got around to taking Larry’s hand, and blushed even more deeply when Larry shook it manfully. The bell rang for lunch, since Buffy had arranged for this meeting to take place just before it, for exactly this reason.

   “What do you say you come sit at my table for lunch?” Larry said. “I can introduce you to my buddies, and hey, I was wondering. The football team needs a water boy, and they’re having tryouts for school mascot. Do you like costumes at all? We’d need someone to sew it, if you’re not into learning the dance steps. Being mascot’s a real blast, though, you get to dance with the cheerleaders, and hang out with the team. And if you don’t make it this year, I could help you train for next year. You know, there’s a whole lot of things the team’s working on which I think you could be a real help for....”

   Larry put his arm around Andrew and led him out of the office. “Thank you!” Buffy mouthed silently at Larry as he carted the kid off.

   Larry nodded enthusiastically, and kept on chatting with Andrew as they headed off toward the cafeteria. She’d told Larry yesterday that Andrew desperately needed a mentor, someone who wasn’t going to bail on him, who would teach him right from wrong, or he could become a real bully like his brother Tucker. Larry had been totally on board with taking on the little guy. 

   “It’s awful feeling like you have to hurt other folks to feel strong,” he’d said. “Just makes me shrivel up to think about it these days.”

   Buffy sighed. So that was Andrew sorted. Tucker, Amy, and Jonathan were going to be a little more difficult. Jonathan had his inadequacy issues, which in her world had culminated in a suicidal fit, though here he was in the Magic Club, so that could help. She knew Jonathan could go overboard on magic, even though the kid had a good heart.

   Amy... Amy had started out really good and really sweet, but by senior year even she had been having her issues. According to Willow, she had started really following in her abusive mother’s footsteps, and three full years as a rat hadn’t helped her personality any. Well, first step was avoiding the rat, and the second step was probably weaning her away from the dark stuff, like what Rack pedaled.

   Rack... Rack was dangerous but usually containable, since he had a broad reach, but limited plans. His goals had always been very personal, not world-domination, but steady dark employment. She could probably safely ignore Rack.

   Tucker, however... he might have to be dealt with. By someone. Somehow.

   What Buffy really wanted was for the Magic Club to police itself, and its own members able to say, “Hey, man, that’s not right, cool it.” But they wouldn’t do that if they didn’t understand magical ethics. Could she get Giles or Jenny to step in and...?

   God, no. Jenny was the last person to teach magical ethics, and Giles was... well, it just wasn’t his job. He was a watcher. He would fail utterly at trying to control a bunch of adolescent kids.

   But she really should ask him, right? She grabbed something to take notes on and headed into the library to consult Giles about it.

   She found Willow there, in the middle of a heated argument with Xander. “You were going to try and mind control me!”

   “No! I just wanted you to see what she was doing to you!”

   “She’s my girlfriend, Willow.”

   “She’s making a fool of you! Literally!”

   “So you cast a love spell on me?”

   “I did not,” Willow said. “It’s... it’s just a bit of a de-lusting. I thought if you could stop pawing at her for just ten minutes you’d see what she’s really like.”

   “Willow, I  _ know _ what Cordelia is really like! You can’t just—”

   “Problem?” Buffy asked.

   Xander glowered. “Not really.”

   “No,” Willow said, looking awkward. She was clutching a book tightly to her chest. Buffy took it from her.

   “ _ Eros Unleashed — Spells of Love and Desire? _ ” She glared at Willow. “Who are you trying to bespell?”

   “Me,” Xander said. “She says she wasn’t trying to get me to fall in love, she was trying to get me to fall out of love. With Cordelia.”

   “That’s not right, Willow,” Buffy said.

   “Other people do it,” Willow said glumly. “ _ He _ did it once.”

   “That was a mistake,” Xander said uncomfortably. “And the spell didn’t do what I wanted it to do, anyway. All I’d wanted then was for Cordelia to fall in... temporary lust with me for like... two days so I could reject her, and she’d know what it felt like. I didn’t mean to make the whole town fall for me. Nearly got me killed when Drusilla grabbed hold, anyway.”

   “You just don’t understand magic.”

   “I understand that that was a mistake!” Xander snapped.

   “And the argument of  _ everyone else is doing it _ is insane, Willow,” Buffy pointed out. “Half the town is murdering the other half right now. Just cause others are doing it doesn’t make it right.”

   Willow grumbled something about how Xander didn’t know what he wanted.

   “You don’t know what  _ you _ want!” Xander retorted. “You want me to be your friend, but you want me to be more, but you don’t, but you don’t know. So you decided you needed to resort to the Dark Arts to keep our hormones in check?”

   “At this point? I’m thinking no,” Willow snapped, and stormed off with her book.

   “Sorry about the teen drama, Buffy,” Xander said, grabbing his backpack and — Buffy noted — the Sunnydale colors jester hat as well. He stormed off jingling.

   That had already gotten out of hand there. Willow was trying to perform mind control magic now, trying to shape things to the way she wanted them. Buffy went up the stairs to find Giles, who was back in the stacks, staring absently into space.

   “Hey. Earth to Giles.”

   “Huh? Oh. I....”

   “You’re not still eating those cookies, are you? ‘Cause I thought I’d got rid of them all.”

   “No, no,” he said. “Your mother and I ran out last night.”

   Buffy blinked, and then groaned. “Oh, god, don’t tell me. Don’t, don’t, I don’t want....” She sighed. She should have been around to stop them before they got into anything, and instead she’d been trying to make up to Angel. She couldn’t say a thing. “Just don’t tell me it was twice on the hood of a police car.”

   “Well... not exactly twice,” Giles said quietly.

   Buffy cringed. Then she made herself stop. Even though the initial idea of her mother and her watcher wigged her completely out when she had been a teenager... god. What a prudish way to think! “Fine,” she muttered.

   “What?”

   “Fine, you and Mom, whatever,” she said. She chuckled. “Just... don’t break her heart, or I’ll come back from my own universe and rip yours out.” She sighed. “If I ever get back there.”

   “We’re still working on a way. Willow and... and Jenny and I.”

   “Are you and Jenny... oh, god, Mom!”

   “I think Jenny and I are... no longer seeing each other,” Giles said. “We probably need to talk about it one more time, but... I think she already knew that last night.” He looked down. “I certainly did.”

   “Last night was... uh, a little....”

   “That’s why I think I need to talk to her. Cold light of day and all that.”

   “I wanted to talk to her, too, and you, about Willow, and the rest of the Magic Club. That scene is getting out of hand, and don’t pretend you haven’t noticed.”

   “I know, but there’s nothing I can do about it.”

   “I was thinking of getting a supervisor, someone who would take them back to basics. Does the coven in Devon...?”

   “They wouldn’t export a witch just for this,” Giles said. “They’d find the place far too parochial, and honestly, they’d be right. I’m not suitable, and Jenny... truthfully, I would not trust her in the role now.”

   “I know.” Buffy frowned. What she really needed was someone just a little older who they would respect, but wouldn’t seem stuffy. 

   An idea suddenly struck her. “Giles? Tell Snyder I’m taking the afternoon off, would you? I need to go visit the college campus.”

   “He won’t be pleased.”

   “What’s he gonna do, fire me?” Buffy asked as they headed back into the main library. “With the Mayor conveniently missing and the whole cookie thing, the school board is way too busy to bother with the crap guidance counselor.” Given the sheer number of duties she had been given at the school which were simply in a supervisory capacity, she knew Jenny had been right. Sunnydale High School was painfully understaffed. “Besides, this is work related. I’m getting a tutor for the magic club. And Willow. Especially Willow. Keep her from getting worse than Ethan Rayne.”

   “She wouldn’t do that.”

   “Yeah, she would,” Buffy told him bluntly. “Lots worse.”

   Giles’ eyes went wide as he realized Buffy was probably speaking from experience.

   “Speaking of which, we’re gonna have to keep an eye open for him. He got away last night.”

   “No, he didn’t,” Giles said.

   “What?”

   “I got a phone call this morning,” Giles said. “They still had my name on record from the last time Rayne was in town. He was found murdered at the factory. Here.” Giles dug the morning’s paper out from the library desk.

   VICTIM FOUND IN SUNNYDALE COOKIE FACTORY the headline read, and went on to relate how the man was found by workers who had come to destroy the cookies, which had been reported as hallucinogenic. (Reasonable enough descriptor.) Rayne had been discovered with his neck snapped near the emergency exit.

   “My guess is some of those minions who were kidnapping the infants didn’t think much of his failure,” Giles said. “Either that or it was in retribution for the Mayor.” Buffy had filled him in on Faith’s situation and the Mayor this morning. 

   Buffy gazed at the report, the world suddenly very still and calm. “Well, that’s him sorted, then,” she said finally. “Are you all right?”

   Giles sighed. “He was my friend for a long time, but... it’s been a while since he and I meant anything real to each other.”

   “So you are all right?”

   “I think so,” Giles said. “Uh... before you go. Um. Your mother and I... well. Joyce and I were... planning a date for Friday night.”

   “Just keep the sordid details, and the handcuffs, to yourselves,” Buffy said.

 


	16. Chapter 16

  
  


   “I-I-I don’t know if I c-can... help you,” Tara stammered.

   “And I know you’re the best person for the job,” Buffy said. “You’re brilliant, dedicated, reliable, your mother gave you an _ excellent _ grounding in magical ethics and natural order.”

   “Yeah, b-but I’m not... not a  _ teacher _ . I’m not even a real witch, I....”

   “You’ve been performing magic how long?”

   “Uh....”

   Buffy knew Tara couldn’t remember a time when she wasn’t performing magic. Her mother used to take her out into the fields around her family’s farm and float leaves and make her dolls dance and summon the fishes in the brook to come and do little shows, flashing off the light of the sun. She didn’t have Willow’s level of power, but her experience was unmatched.

   “What you are is someone older, but not so old they’ll dismiss you,” Buffy said.

   “I’m still eighteen!” Tara said. “I’m j-just a freshman.”

   “So you’re only about a year older than a lot of them. One year can be a huge deal when it’s the difference between high school and college.”

   Tara frowned. “H-how did you find me again?”

   “I knew a relative of yours,” Buffy said. She didn’t think it prudent to get into alternate worlds and parallel dimensions and spiritual doubles just yet. “She told me about your mother, and about how she trained you. When I realized the Magic Club needed a basic groundwork in magical ethics, you popped right into my head.”

   “A... a r-relative?” Tara swallowed. “You... you didn’t tell my dad where I was, did you?”

   She was actually shaking. Buffy had forgotten about Tara’s abusive father. While Tara had spoken a great deal about her mother, she almost never mentioned her father except in terms of the general family. What she  _ had _ gleaned about Tara’s father was disturbing. At the very least, he had used his authority to make Tara and her mother both believe that they were part demon, which was why they could do magic. How her mother had maintained her sanity and dared to teach her daughter was a question that Buffy had never had answered. She suspected mother and daughter had operated in secret a lot.

   “No. I haven’t called your family.”

   Tara gave a shaky sigh. “Um. I-I really don’t think I... I can be... um....”

   Buffy decided to cut to the chase. She had presented herself as Sunnydale High’s guidance counselor, given the skivvy on the Magic Club, but the real center of the question was Willow.

   “There’s one particular member of the club,” Buffy said, “I need someone to give special tutelage to. She needs someone who is clever, firm, but very, very kindly, and all the divinations point to you.”

   “D-divinations?” Tara asked, looking more interested now.

_  Divinations _ was, as of this point, code word for everything Buffy already knew. “Her name is Willow,” Buffy said. “And she has power beyond anything in this world. She has the power to  _ rend  _ worlds, accidentally, even. She has enough power to call a soul from heaven, resurrect the dead, invent spells for things no one has ever done before. She has power enough, if she walks the right paths, to touch the divine. Not just call on favor from the gods, enough to become a god, or a goddess, if she can control her magic. But the divinations all point to it being hard for her to reach that path.”

   “I...I don’t have that kind of-of p-p-power….”

   “I know,” Buffy said. “That’s good. She needs to slow down, and she needs to learn the  _ why _ of things. She has the power. You have the rest of it. Darkness looms on all sides. She has had no one to teach her the right path of magic. So, as of now, she’s used magic for curses, playing with dimensions, and is dabbling in mind control and love spells—”

   “Love spells?” Tara’s face tightened with irritation. “These stupid city hedge witches! Don’t they understand, love spells are, by design, dark magic! They’ll perform some gateway spell love charm, and suddenly they’re roofieing some kid into sleeping with them, and now they’re rapists as well as black mages, and they’ll still go floating around thinking it’s all happiness and love and innocence!” She shook her head. “The only so-called love spells that aren’t black magic are the ones that direct  _ you yourself  _ on your own path of fate, or open up  _ your own eyes _ to the love already around you! I wish more people were taught the paths of white magic, or green magic, if you let the black tangle into your soul, it’ll never fully... uh....” She realized she had just fallen into a completely uninhibited speech. “Um. Sssorry. I-I-I didn’t mean to g-go o-off like that.”

   “No,” Buffy said, grinning. “That is exactly what I need. And it’s what my students need, especially Willow.”

   Tara shook her head again. “If she’s already on these dark paths, I don’t know what good I could... d-do.”

   “She’s not there yet,” Buffy said. “She’s made some mistakes, but her goal is always for the good. So far. She’s desperate to help people, and save lives, and if someone can just keep her from going off the path....” She frowned at Tara. “I wish there was a way I could show you what she’s like. Would you just come to the school and meet her? After you meet Willow, we can see if you’d be willing to take over the Magic Club.”

   “I-i-if I did start to work with this M-magic Club... it is real magic, right? Not... empowering women with the shining of the moon?”

   “Magic,” Buffy said. “They blew up one of their own houses during Homecoming night.”

   “Right. Well, I-I would probably need to change the course of the whole club. I-I can’t work with dabblers, you can’t learn something if at its core you hold contempt for it. The club would have to meet at least three times a week, preferably five, with-with extra activities for c-certain events, moonrises and birth celebrations.”

   “They’re kids, I’m hoping none of them are pregnant.”

   “I just mean birthdays,” Tara said with a smile. “T-they can be... important for... magical growth.”

   “See? I knew you were the right person! So will you meet us at the high school? In the library?”

   “M-maybe,” Tara said. “H-hang on.” She took down a little velvet bag from one of her scarf-festooned shelves and opened it, pulling a small handful of smooth pebbles from within. She scattered them on a velvet tablecloth on her dorm room desk.

   Buffy watched as Tara consulted her rune stones. The young witch frowned at them for a moment, and then looked up, her eyes bright. “Yeah. I-I’ll stop by after school next week. I-I hope I c-can be of some use to... to some of them.”

   “That’s perfect,” Buffy said. She turned to go, and then paused in the doorway. “By the way... it’s... really, really good to see you.”

   Tara smiled at her. “Y-you too,” she said.

   Tara was just glad to meet someone friendly and accepting. Buffy was thinking how it had been years since she’d seen Tara, and that the last time she’d seen her pretty face, it had been in the rictus of violent death. She almost wanted to throw herself into the young witch’s arms and hug her, but she knew this Tara didn’t know her well enough for that yet. Buffy hoped that they could tell her the truth, once the whole Slayer/Watcher/Ensouled-Vampire/Witch/World-Saving/Alternate World thing could be addressed.

   Buffy headed out across campus, ready to go back to the school and report that little chore taken care of, when she turned a corner and collided hard with someone’s upraised fist.

   Buffy dropped her bag, grabbed her assailant, and body slammed him onto the ground, planning to hold him down with her foot on his throat as she scrabbled a stake out and took the demon down! Then she did a double take.  _ “Riley!?” _

   It was almost a screech.

   “Oh, god, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean... what the hell did you punch me for?” How the hell did he even know her?

   “Punch you?” said the burly soldier on the ground. “I was just hanging a poster.” He indicated the stapler in his hand, which had apparently been in the act of hanging a “Back-To-Campus BBQ MeetNGreet” poster on the bulletin board in the breezeway. “You’re the one who came and hit my hand with your face.”

   “All my fault you hit me, huh?” she said. Now didn’t that just sum up her relationship with Riley. Still, this did seem to have been an accident. She held out a hand to help him up.

   “No, no, it’s okay. I’d sort of like to pick up my pride as I go, you know?”

   “Can’t accept help from a woman?” Buffy asked, unable to keep the teasing out of her voice. She knew the faces this guy made when he was fucking. It was really hard to take him seriously when she knew his tongue would go lolling out the side of his mouth when he came.

   “Don’t want to need help,” he said, laughing it off. He picked himself up and stretched his back. “You have quite the body slam going there.”

   “Oh, yeah. Uh. Well. I’ve... taken a few self-defense classes,” Buffy said. Faith may not have seen the point in staying incognito, but Buffy still did, and especially to Riley who... she had never really liked showing her full strength to, anyway.

   “What are you doing here anyway?” Riley asked. “I haven’t seen you around campus before. You’re not a student?”

   “No, no, I... I was just looking for a tutor for one of my... I’m a guidance counselor at the high school.”

   “Oh. You’re awfully young and pretty for a guidance counselor.”

   “Uh... thanks.”

   “And I’ve made quite the impression on you, haven’t I. I just wasn’t looking.” He smiled, all Iowa homeboy. “I’m real sorry if I hurt you. I didn’t mean to.”

_ Now _ you say this, Buffy thought.

   “What do you say I take you to lunch to make it up to you?” he said. “Cafeteria makes a mean Caesar Salad. Uh... girls... like salad, don’t they?”

   “Um. No, thanks,” she said.

   “Well, if you’re not into that, I think there’s a falafel stand down by....”

   “No. I’m not hungry.”

   “Oh. Well, how about a drink, then?” he said. “The coffee shop makes yogurt smoothies.”

   “I’m sorry, Riley.” She gathered up her bag, wanting to get on. Angel was bad enough, she did not need Riley complications in this universe. “Really not interested.”

   “Come on,” he said, following up behind her. “I owe you something for smashing you in the face. And you owe me for knocking me flat on my back. How about a cup of coffee? My treat.”

   “Riley!”

   “I won’t take no for an answer.”

   “I have a boyfriend,” Buffy managed, and it came out somewhat pointedly.

   Riley looked crestfallen. “Really?”

   “Yeah.”

   He rolled his eyes. “Well, why didn’t you say that in the first place?” he asked, almost making it sound like she’d led him on. “Well. It was really nice to meet you, ah.... Say. We never did introduce ourselves, did we?”

   “Have a good day, Riley,” Buffy said, hitching her bag more securely over her shoulder.

   “Yeah, you too!” He still sounded friendly, but his eyes didn’t meet hers anymore, as if she was no longer a complete person. He scooped and collected his fallen posters and his stapler and strode off whistling to invite more new students to the barbeque.

   Buffy watched him walk away, arms swinging. Okay. He still had good arms, but that was about the only thing Buffy found appealing about the guy anymore. 

   That was just weird. The whole thing. True, it made sense that if he’d found her attractive back home his counterpart would find her attractive here, but she’d honestly thought that  _ won’t take no for an answer _ shit was just because he’d really liked her and they’d resonated together and he’d really cared. Now it seemed that was just his go-to dealing-with-a-girl phrase. Why wouldn’t he listen to  _ no _ until she’d come up with some boyfriend which, to be honest, for all he knew she’d just invented. It was like, unless she’d invoked some male to claim her as his property she had been fair game for... well, a hunt.

   It really wasn’t all that different from a vampire, now she thought about it.

   She headed across the campus, feeling weird about the encounter, and turned around again to watch Riley out in the sunshine. What was bugging her? This wasn’t her Riley, why did she feel there was something she’d forgotten to do?

   Riley stopped and talked to someone, who handed him a sheaf of papers and then walked on. As Riley’s companion approached Buffy, she realized what it was she had forgotten.

_    The Initiative! _

   That was Professor Walsh coming toward her, and Buffy suppressed the impulse to hide her face. This Walsh would have no idea who she was, and certainly would have no need to hate or kill her.

   Buffy did a quick timeline in her head. If this Initiative was on the same timeline as the one in her universe, it was just starting up here, moving from theoretical files and papers deep within the top-secret military to actual implementation here in Demon-Central Sunnydale. This meant, there was probably no Adam yet, and they probably hadn’t started collecting much in the way of demon samples. Spike had been Subject 17, which probably meant he was either the seventeenth vampire they’d caught, the seventeenth  _ demon _ they’d caught, or the seventeenth person they’d tried implanting that chip into. Either way, seventeen wasn’t very much. No, it wouldn’t take a whole year to collect seventeen vampires, they were probably still constructing the pens and creating the compound under the campus. No doubt they were quietly constructing the 314 corridors, and Walsh’s theories had yet to be put into implementation.

   Well... fuck. Now she had even  _ more _ on her plate.

 


	17. Chapter 17

 

   About. Bloody. Time.

   They were finally starting this goddamned dig. The night after the tribute fiasco, Spike had managed to get Brian, two handfuls of personally selected minions, and several gallons of extracted blood into several large vans, and drive them all over to the vineyard. The blood was set up in a cooler, (We can use the opportunity to research it, Gramps. I can tell you how long it’ll take before it goes off. Never mind that human medicine has been doing this for more than half a century now, you’re out of touch, and I don’t plan on getting you hooked up to that kind of scientific knowledge. We need to research it! No, I don’t want any sodding victims to bring with.) and the vampires were set up in the basement, while Brian arranged for the dig.

   Spike had taken a score, as the Master had permitted, full twenty vamps including Brian, which gave him enough muscle for shifts. He set up some cots for hot bedding it, as it was called, only enough beds for some of them to lie down at a time. They never did get the electricity on, but all of the Master’s lackeys were used to working by torchlight. They were vampires. They could see just fine in the dark.

   It still didn’t go as fast as Spike would have liked. Drill and cut, drill and cut, break, carry, drill and cut, piece by miserable piece, the rock was chiseled away. By now there was enough room for one of his shifts to actually be inside the dig. The dig was big, since they had no slayer now to pinpoint precisely where the scythe would be. Spike had done his best to triangulate based on what Buffy and Faith had been able to sense earlier, and had given those calculations, (such as they were) to Brian, but Brian had determined it was best to do a large mine rather than a small drill, so there would be no false drill sites, and they certainly couldn’t miss the weapon when they came on it.

   “You sure this is as fast as they can move?” Spike demanded of Brian.

   “With this equipment, unless you wanted to use blasting materials—”

   “No,” Spike growled, as if Brian had just suggested digging out the rock using teaspoons. “The scythe is partly made of wood, we’re not to start blasting!”

   “Well, this is what we have,” he said. “It’s a large dig, but so long as we keep the walls shored up. I don’t like the feel of this shale. If we go too fast, we might get cave ins—”

   Spike grabbed Brian by the scruff of the neck and shoved him against the wall. “You said nothing about cave ins when you were surveying, mate,” he insisted.

   “It... it won’t be a problem!” Brian insisted.

   “Good,” Spike snarled. “Because I wouldn’t want to have to  _ hurt _ you. And if you were to muck this up...”

   “No way, boss,” Brian said. “I swear it, I know — I know what I’m doing! We’re good!”

   Spike debated causing some actual damage and then decided, no. No, Brian was good for now. He was a reasonable overseer as well as a solid mine engineer, and for the most part he was directing the minions well. He released him with a deliberately evil smile, holding his hand up to remind Brian that hey, it was still there. It just hadn’t broken him yet. 

   Unlike the ones who were currently off duty, who were causing what could only be described as a ruckus back in the basement. He turned from Brian and glared. “What is that row?”

   Brian shrugged before scrabbling back to his charts and his tools. He had earth to move. Spike had really lucked out meeting up with Brian the Brain.

   Spike climbed back up through the tunnel, past the working minions, and into the winery basement, with its creepy abandoned wine vats and the camp beds for the workers. The workers seemed to be watching a fight, or laying bets, or something. They were supposed to be resting. They weren’t. All the ones who weren’t working were in a knot at the center of the basement, shouting and writhing and pumping their fists. Spike rolled his eyes. He could discipline the lot, or let it go.

   If he was the only Big Bad in the area, it wouldn’t be a question. Minions were minions for a reason. Weak vampires preferred to follow stronger ones. But there was a fine line between earning their respect and driving them away, and if there were other strong vampires in the area, there were more options for the minions to choose from. They would naturally gravitate toward the strongest — that was the Master — and there were several others under the Master who were also powerful in their way. If his minions chose to leave him, they had alternatives. Spike may have been the newest, and possibly the most intriguing Big Bad, but he was more Middling Big compared to the Master’s Immense, and that soul was seen as a big drawback to some. Some of the other Biggish or even Moderate Bads under the Master had also collected followers.

   Like — Spike’s eyes narrowed as he saw him — Mr. Trick, who was lounging on the stairs for some reason. Spike glowered at the vampire with his bloody Beau Brummel attitude. “And what in the bloody hell are you doing here, you sod?”

   “Came here with a message from the Master,” Trick said. “You’re needed back in Sunnydale.”

   “I’m needed here at the dig!” Spike insisted.

   “Don’t look all hard at me, man, I’m just the messenger!” Trick drawled.

   Spike’s fist clenched. Here he was finally starting to get somewhere with this dig, which would finally get this weapon, which would finally get him out of this wretched mission, and away from these wretched evil fiends and their wretched evil bloodlust, and maybe even put them on a path toward getting out of this hellscape of a universe where he was supposed to be dead!

   Sometimes, he wished he was.

   “Keep it down over there!” Spike barked.

   The knot of rowing minions didn’t really calm down any, but Spike didn’t feel like cracking heads.

   “And, ah, why are  _ you _ the one to bring this message?” Spike asked. “Couldn’t he have sent, you know, say, a messenger?” There were minions for whom that was their sole purpose in life, it seemed.

   “I volunteered, man!” Trick said. “Wanted to see this famous weapon!”

   “It’s not out yet,” Spike said. “But when it is, believe me Mr. Trick. Every sod in the demon district is gonna get a good long look.”

   Trick grinned evilly, and Spike wanted to hit his little black mustache. “I figured,” he said. He examined his fingernails. “The Master figured, too. He was wondering who should wield this weapon when it’s found.”

   “There’s no question of that, mate,” Spike said. “It’s mine.”

   “You sure? There’s some debate, you see. He who performs the greatest service will have the greatest honor, yadda yadda.”

   “And I take it you’ve put yourself in the running?”

   “Who, me? Go trying to kill a slayer? Nah, man, I’m just in it for the silk suits and the hot blood and the sweet, sweet sugar, you know what I’m sayin’?”

   “Yeah,” Spike said. “I think I have some idea.”

   “But I can be useful, to the right sort of fella. If I thought my palm might be greased right, I could even stand up in your corner.”

   Spike felt sticky, listening to Trick’s oily little talk. “We’d have to see about that,” he said.

   Then from out of the knot of wrestling minions, there came a scream. A feminine scream. Spike had only selected a couple of female minions, for a few reasons, mostly due to the fact that there were more male than female minions in the demon district, but also fewer of the females had experience with heavy labor. Which meant the chances of them being in the center of that knot of extremely agitated and excited vampires was slim.

   What the hell had Trick done?

   Spike plunged through the knot of vampires to find exactly what Trick had done. Trick had supplied his minions with a live victim. The woman was naked, bruised, covered in blood, and Spike quickly realized that the only reason she hadn’t been screaming before was because someone had likely been... stoppering... her mouth.

   He didn’t even waste time. He assessed in less than a millisecond the state of this woman — heartrate, scent, injuries, trauma — and knew that without extensive trauma care she could not survive, and probably not even then. Vampires can move as fast as they can think, and Spike had wrenched her from the vampires that held her, and snapped her neck faster than one would have thought possible.

   “You all disgust me!” he barked at them as he let the victim fall.

   The vampires stared at him, some of them zipping up their trousers, some of them not even bothering. The reek of blood and viscera was tangy in his nose.

   “Man cannot live on blood alone,” Trick drawled out from the back of the room. “I’d noticed that about you, Spike. You don’t partake of what you partake, if you hear what I’m saying. We have that bedroom all set up at the Bronze to play in.” He chuckled. “Never saw you in it, though. I’d have thought you could use the playtime, you know? Do a little soul searching...?”

   Spike realized he had made what Trick perceived as a mistake, but he’d had a response for this accusation already lined up. “You think I like shagging cattle?” he snapped at the man. “And you.” He glared at the minions who had been wolf-packing the girl. They hadn’t wanted to take turns... so they had carved.... “Lowering yourselves to these animals. When you buggers were human, did you go shagging your cheeseburgers, too?”

   Some of the minions looked uncomfortable.

   Spike chuckled. “Yeah. I can just see it. All you lot lined up at the Doublemeat, holding on tight, wanking away into your chips. All you’ve ever been. A bunch of bleeding wankers!”

   He grabbed the two nearest minions and banged their heads together, hard. Both heads cracked, one of them so hard he dusted under Spike’s hand, the other passed out cold, blood streaming from a dent in his skull. He might dust, or be brain damaged if he regained consciousness. Spike didn’t care. He had expected to lose a couple to natural wastage, e.g. killing to make an example to the others.

   “We’re here to work, you sods! You keep that burger-shagging kink away from my dig, or I’ll show you what for! Any of you still tainted with animal enough you need get your rocks off, you’ve got each other. Have at!” He shook his head. “I see this kind of display again....” He lashed out one hand and punched another random minion in the face, shattering it. That minion went down, no longer in possession of a nose, only a skin bag of crushed cartilage.

   He hauled himself out of the knot of chagrined minions, glaring at Trick. “What were you playing at?” he asked low.

   Trick grinned. “I thought she’d be a nice treat for you and your buddies,” he said. “That or you and the girl would hit it off. Be soul mates....”

   Spike looked at Trick with obvious contempt. “Thought you were going to call me out on mercy or some bollocks? I’m just better than those animals. They’re food. Anything else is just lowering yourself to their level.” He grinned. “But, hell, if you’re randy, Trick, I think the farmer down the dell there has a nice pig sty. A whole brothel, all ready for you.” He made kissy faces at the smarmy git.

   “Who’s to say I haven’t already partook?” Trick said with a grin. “Of the farmer of the dell, so you say. Well, hi-ho, the derry-o, the Master does want to see you. Now.”

   “Not sunset yet. How’d you get here, anyroad?”

   “We got a van,” Trick said. “And a nice fyarl couple to drive it for us. Come on up. Got it parked in the lobby.”

   Spike didn’t want to leave. He wanted to stay and make the minions work, he wanted to stay and make sure of Brian, he wanted....

   To not go back to the demon district again. Here, he had to stay hard, on the ball, never let his guard down, and he hadn’t slept properly in ages. But he could control whether any victims were brought in and tortured, and he had only his minions to judge him. Back in the demon district there were too many people who could get hurt, too many larger factions to try and manipulate, and there was the Master... who had a tendency to read people. He hadn’t become Master for nothing. Spike was only as strong as he was at his age because he was also of the Master’s blood.

   Still, that was the point of it all. When the Master said _ jump,  _ Spike said... well, he could say sod off, Gramps, but he had to make a show of hopping to it all the same. No time to process. No time to feel. No time to be sick. No time to think about any of it at all.  _ Hop to it _ . 

   “Well, then, come along-a-me, boyo,” he said, grabbing hold of Trick and dragging him behind him. He could trust Brian to keep the boys working, but not if Trick was trying to undermine the mine, for whatever nefarious reason of his own. “It’s time to meet our Master.”

***

  
  


   Things were coming to a head. The humans were getting disturbingly organized. Mayor Wilkins, the Master’s only human friend for over a century, had been destroyed, likely by the Slayer. The Master had admired Wilkins. He had the right view of humanity, and had wanted to purge his human grossness. The Master could get behind that. But Richard Wilkins was, astoundingly, gone, Sunnydale was in flux, and now the humans — again, likely led by the Slayer — were trying to close off the vampires’ access to the Hellmouth itself.

   The Master hated to admit that he was in limbo. He had tried to open the Hellmouth, to create Hell on Earth, but had only succeeded in becoming trapped. For three score years he was held there, and once he had been freed, the idea of remaining there had been anathema. This was why he had settled the Aurelians in the Bronze, a central hub Wilkins had arranged specifically to assist in feeding vampires. Draw the humans with liquor and music and sexuality and lax zoning laws, and surround the place with dark alleys and easy access to the underground. It was a feeding trough.

   He’d gone there almost instinctually, and once he was established there, it made sense to set up his field surrounding it, with the Bronze as the central point. But the Master had forgotten, or hadn’t realized, that in setting up the field he was essentially preventing new humans from coming to the feeding trough — really, he should have thought about that. He had remedied this with the feeding pens, and his blood extraction factory would be more than adequate once it was perfected. But he also hadn’t realized that leaving the access to the Hellmouth outside of the field was probably a mistake.

   Not that the Master planned on opening the Hellmouth again. Not as he had. Not yet, not until his strength had returned, his army was plentiful, and his plans to move the vampires into the industrial age had completely come to fruition.

   “It’s the electronic age,” said the fledgeling.

   The Master stopped in his monologue. He often liked to think out loud, and it wasn’t until someone said something that contradicted him that he even realized he was doing it.

   “What was that?”

   “The industrial age started, oh, a good two hundred years ago, Gramps. We’re in the electronic or the information or the... whathaveyou, computer age now.”

   The Master was confused. “Industry only started a few decades ago. I’m certain of it.”

   The fledgeling shook his head. “Suit yourself,” he said, but he sounded arrogant.

   The Master narrowed his eyes at the fledg— no, Spike. He had earned his name when he had slaughtered the Slayer in China. Two slayers now, it would seem. And he was no longer a fledgeling, this arrogant descendent of his, Darla’s child’s child’s child.

   If Darla had not been taken from him, he would not remember that about this fledg — fighter. Then Spike would simply be another minion, one of several, perhaps slightly more impressive than some of the others, but nothing remarkable. By four generations, it was hard to remember the bloodline was his own. He did not make children often. He rarely found humans worthy of it, whose evil and depravity had already been nurtured inside of them, to form a suitable landscape for the demon to be born within.

   He would not, he was sure, have chosen the poet he could see inside Spike. He would not have considered it worthy of the evil. The Master could see into the heart of every vampire he encountered, could see the shape of their original host, and Spike was... soft. Pitiful.  _ Loving. _ It was revolting, to look within and see the shape of that, and yet... there was a certain poetry to it, as well. To have gone from weak mortality to the glorious violence that was now Spike. Yes, he could see why the juxtaposition had been intriguing to Drusilla.

   He would never have turned Drusilla, either, and truly, that would have been a tragedy. Angelus was... well, Darla deserved her own plaything, he supposed. But Drusilla... ah. She had been a nonpareil, a peerless creation of such confusion and evil that even the Master had been impressed by her. In fact it had only been Drusilla that had caused him to forgive Angelus his brashness and his irreverence, and be willing to welcome the brute into the fold. And then that soul had happened.... 

   “To be fair,” Spike said, lighting a cigarette, “Angel was a wanker even before the bloody soul.”

   The Master realized he had begun thinking out loud again. How much of what he had been thinking had escaped his lips? When had he started doing that?  Time was... he couldn’t remember... and he had been on his own long enough that.... “Yes,” he said, forcing himself to focus on his words. “Yes. Angelus was always a troubled child, but Darla had her preferences. And one must indulge children, mustn’t one.”

   Spike only grunted.

   “I’m surprised you never made a proper child, Spike,” he said. “You should think about it, when this is all over. As my dear friend Richard would have told you, children really are the reason for it all. To pass oneself on. I was thinking, since you are about to find this weapon, we really ought to  _ turn _ the Last Slayer. Oh, I like the sound of that. The Last Slayer! I shall call her that from now on. The Last Slayer! Doesn’t that have a certain ring?”

   “It does,” Spike said, puffing on his tobacco. The Master approved of tobacco. To nurse fire before your face was a sign of bravery, and the fumes of smoke seemed redolent of the fires of hell.

   “What do you say to that, Spike? Perhaps  _ you _ should turn her. A slow death with your... mystical scythe, once it is found, pinned down with it perhaps, while you then drain and turn her. She could be your daughter. Turned Slayers are exceptionally wicked.”

   Spike smiled, as if the idea appealed to him at some level. “Yeah, there’s a wicked streak in the slayer, even without,” he said.

   “Exactly! How is that for a plan, Spike? I would do it myself, but... I’m an old man, and another child at my age....” He shook his head. “I already have Collin on my hands, and he is....”

   “A handful?” Spike supplied.

   The Master frowned, doubtfully. The Anointed One had already fulfilled his purpose, in bringing the Slayer Buffy Summers to him. Perhaps now he was only an encumbrance.... Yet the Master was loath to destroy his own blood. “Indeed,” he said. “Maybe in a century or two, when I’m stronger, when the world has been reinvented in my image. Maybe then I’ll feel ready to reinvent myself with... perhaps a new Darla....” He sighed wistfully. “But you should have a family, Spike. Since Drusilla is lost to us....”

   Spike shrugged. “I get on fine on my own.”

   The Master could taste that lie on the air. Spike’s lies — all vampires lied — had been heavily tempered and tasted with various truths, enough that the Master had been trusting him, for the most part, even with that soul sullying his demonic aura. But that lie had been blatant. Spike was clearly lonely. No surprise. He had never been the lone wolf he was presenting now. Spike was a pack animal, one of the vampires who did better in an evil pairing. There were many such.  

   The Master had been watching Spike, or having Spike watched, since he’d returned. The soul was... doubtful, yet none had yet seen any indications of him weakening in his evil. He had been attempting to kill the Slayer, after all, and had very nearly succeeded. However, his depravity did seem a bit stilted. The Master had had Trick bring his victim to Spike on purpose, and Trick’s tiny head shake as he’d brought Spike in had been clear enough. Spike did not approve of lecherous torture, at least not on his own account. The Master had tired of it himself, centuries ago, so it did not seem outrageous to him that Spike would be disinterested in indulging his lingering human urges on humans themselves, no matter how delightfully they squealed while at it.

   No, Trick’s plan had been flawed. Truly, it was nothing more than minion rivalry, his dismissal of Spike. What Spike needed was another vampire, someone to fulfill Drusilla’s role in his bed (though not take her place. None could replace such a paragon of evil as Drusilla), a young minion still pulsing with humanity, but not so bestial as to be repugnant to his warrior grandson.

   That was a thought for another day.

   “Yes,” the Master said. “In the meantime, I have a job for you, Spike. It needs a warrior who is not afraid to encounter risks.”

   Spike puffed on his tobacco. “You’ve come to the right bloke.” He tossed down the cigarette and stepped on it. “Need me to plan a battle?”

   “The battle’s already been planned, Spike. I only need a leader.” He smiled at his offspring. “You.”

   “Brilliant,” Spike said. “What’s the trick?”

   “This.” The Master threw down the Sunnydale newspaper, with a feature article on top. He himself was appalled at the very concept. A collection of sunny faced smiling teenagers in second-hand clothes were perched on the steps to the entrance of Sunnydale High School, and the headline read, “TEEN ORPHANS TO FIND HOME AT SUNNYDALE HIGH”.

   “They’re trying to turn the High School into a private residence.”

   Spike shrugged. “What do you want me to do about it? Seems hopeless. Won’t be allowed in unless invited, yeah?”

   The Master smiled. “And for one more night... we are,” he said. He pointed to the bottom of the article. It announced there was an open house to welcome the children from the group home, and their home-leaders, into the high school.

   “So?”

   “Open house,” the Master said. “To welcome the children. For today’s date.  _ It doesn’t specify a time. _ ” He smiled broadly. “Until midnight, the house is still open! We destroy the orphans, we abolish their plans, and the High School remains our gate to the Hellmouth. All I need is someone to execute the attack.”

   Spike laughed, but it sounded like a lie. He was uneasy... perhaps he doubted his ability to lead the assault?

   “You needn’t worry, Spike,” he said. “I have the utmost confidence in you. Drusilla told me of how you supported her whenever she attacked an orphanage! Such innocence destroyed....” The Master sighed. “It is a beautiful thought.”

   “Oh, it is, at that,” Spike said. “I just don’t know if whatever team you got out there is up to it. To be honest, Gramps... I don’t think much of the wankers who follow you. They aren’t worthy to lick the devil’s boots.”

   That was the utter truth. The Master laughed.

   “All right, I’ll do it,” Spike said. “Be glad to. But I’d like to form my own team, at least for my lieutenants, do a quick reconnoiter of the district, maybe call in a few blokes I’ve met around here, maybe even a few non-vamps. Some muscle, you know?” He looked up. “I can hook back up with my blokes here in... say, an hour?”

   “My army is already assembled, Spike,” the Master said. “Your enthusiasm and attention to detail is appreciated, but honestly, I only need someone to yell _ charge _ . And time is of the essence. In fact...?” he looked over at Trick, who nodded. “They’re already loaded into the vans. All you need do is join them.”

   Spike stared at the newspaper for a long moment, his face tight. “I don’t like fighting battles that aren’t on my terms, Gramps,” he said low. When he looked up, his face was dark with demonic power, and his yellow eyes were accusatory. “And you should know, I don’t appreciate being forced into one.”

   The Master smiled. It was so  _ cute _ how children could throw their tantrums! “Well, we’ll discuss it when you get back, Spike,” he said. “We can talk about how  _ you _ would rather y _ our Master _ handled  _ his _ battles in  _ his _ realm.”

   Spike rolled his yellow eyes, snatched the paper up, and shoved it into his pocket. “I’ll do your raid for you,” he said. “But next time, you talk to me before you drop an engagement in my lap. I’m a grand warrior, not a hired thug. I’m the only slayer killer you’ve got in these ranks, and don’t pretend I’m not.”

   “You are,” the Master said. “Which is why I need you. The Slayer’s Watcher and her associates linger around the school. The battle is not likely to be simple. But take enough of the orphans out, or make the concept of turning the school into a private residence unworkable. That’s your goal tonight, Spike. Don’t disappoint me.” He shook his head. “Remember, by midnight, our invitation has been rescinded. Time is blood.”

   “I know about time, Gramps,” Spike snarled. “And I know how much you have. Don’t worry. I know exactly what I’m doing.”

   He strode off, and the Master smiled. They all said to be wary of Spike and his soul, but truly, his lies never tasted complete. He meant almost all of what he said. He truly knew what he was doing.

   And he wouldn’t let the Master be disappointed.


	18. Chapter 18

 

   Harmony Kendall grunted a little as she looked up at Cordelia, who was cleaning. Harmony wasn’t cleaning. She wasn’t doing anything, really. She was standing there looking like she was doing something, but really she didn’t want to, so mostly she was just there. Was it really right that  _ she _ should have to clean up after a bunch of homeless freeloading orphans? She knew their parents had been killed or abducted by vampires and all, but did that give them the right to take over their school and stink up the students lounge and... and  _ breathe _ and things? One of the orphans, a freshman with an asthma problem, was puffing on her inhaler. Harmony rolled her eyes. “Shouldn’t she do that in, like, the bathroom or something?” she asked.

   “I know,” Cordelia sighed, dumping a bunch of paper cups into the trash can, “But, technically, breathing in medicine isn’t considered an act of public indecency.”

   “I think it should,” Harmony said. “How dare she go all  _ huh-huh  _ like Darth Vader in front of normal people? Creeps me out.”

   “Right,” said Xander. “Because one should always consult the personal sensibilities of prom princesses before performing a life-saving action.”

   Harmony glared. “It’s not _prom_ , it was _homecoming_ , you _fool_! Hel _lo!_ And who asked you anyway, _Harris_?”

   “No one.”

   “Well, who gave you permission to speak?”

   “The human condition, which, though I’m sure you’re unaware of it, includes a certain invention called free will,” Xander said.

   Harmony only turned away as Xander came up to help Cordelia. She simply couldn’t  _ believe _ those two were together. 

   She and Xander knew each other quite well, really. Since there were no last names starting with I or J between them, Harris and Kendall had to sit next to each other on busses, in class, in gym, and in any alphabetical line, for more than a decade. She knew almost everything about him. She knew how he cracked his gum. She knew how he tied his shoes. She knew that he’d mutter things to himself as he practiced for tests. She knew how cute he could look when he tilted his head back against the wall by the track field, and the sun would make little reddish tints show up in his hair. And, of course, she knew how lame he was, and that no one of any standing could like him, and how utterly and completely social-suicidey it was to be seen with him, ever since he had humiliated himself with those Aquaman Underoos in first grade.

   She had decided then, right then, she could never be friends with Xander Harris, and had stuck to her guns, even through third grade when he’d had the coolest cardboard rocket-ship in class, and even through sixth grade, when he was the only person who had managed to make a decent batch of cookies in home-ec, and even through ninth-grade, when she’d spent two whole days eating lunch by herself, even though Xander Harris had been the only one to smile at her (even if it had been more amused than welcoming) in a way that was not utter rejection when she was walking alone around the cafeteria, trying to find her place in the high school. Even through all of that, she’d known Xander could never be considered a cool kid. He had had an Aquaman Underoos incident. You couldn’t be seen with the guy with the Aquaman Underoos incident, no matter how cute and funny he was turning out to be.

   She’d thought Cordelia had known what a lame-o-freakazoid he was, and had been completely on board with no-holds-barred rejection of the Harris and All He Represented. Cordy had  _ seemed _ to know that. She’d always agreed every time Harmony pointed out all his Xander-Harrisy flaws, because Harmony pointed them out a lot, just checking, after all, to make sure he was still social napalm. And Cordelia had always agreed that yes, he was totally lame, and there was no way you could ever be friends with him, or be seen with him, or ask for one of his donuts that he was gladly sharing with the rest of the kids, or play with his really nifty RC car that he’d brought to school and let everyone else play with during recess, or hang out with him at the beach when he was playing volleyball, badly, even if it had looked like fun, and he had kinda filled out, and he did look really cute these days.

   Nope. None of those great things could erase the stigma of being seen beside the Xander Harrises of the world.

   But now Cordelia had marched staunchly against the party line, and tried to pretend that Xander wasn’t some kind of virulent social disease that would cover you in visible spots of lame-o.

   It was a betrayal.

   Harmony couldn’t forgive Xander for it. She tried to be accepting of Cordelia still, because clearly she was under the influence of some truly debilitating hormonal imbalance, to ever think that Xander Harris could rise above the title of  _ LAME _ and be considered someone cool.

   Of course she said none of this, not to any of them. What she actually said was, “You’re not Will, you’re  _ Xander _ , and you should shut up.”

       There was a time that would have made him cringe and... well, actually, probably not be offended really, because Xander had this magical ability to not be fazed by anything at all, not social standing or rude put downs or even murderous monsters, which was, Cordelia said, why she was actually with him. But he used to wander away at least when Harmony was cutting, and he didn’t even do that these days. Now he still hung around and put his arm around Cordelia’s waist, and she let him, because she was insane, and didn’t realize that the gentle way he touched her was... well, just wrong to have happen, that was all, it was wrong. Harmony narrowed her eyes. Maybe, she thought, she should arrange for Xander to be eaten by vampires? He was always putting himself in danger, right, hanging out with those freaks in the library? It should be really easy.

   So. How could she arrange for Xander to have to face a bunch of vampires?

   The window suddenly shattered inward, and the whole room full of orphans and supervisors and teachers and the pep club, who were helping to raise awareness and welcome and... well, pep for the new now-permanent members of the Sunnydale student body screamed in terror as at least ten vampires burst through and into the students lounge. There was a sudden flash of movement as people fled, vampires rushed, teenagers were screaming, and Snyder stood in the center of the room shouting, “Here now! What’s the meaning of all this?”

   “What can I say?” said the blond vampire who stood in the center of the group of attackers. “Couldn’t resist the invite.” He held up a little white banner that announced OPEN HOUSE.

   Most of the vampires had grabbed people, and kept them from leaving. Harmony had started backwards at the sound of broken glass, and then cowered instinctively, scrambling under the refreshment table. She realized now that she was under here that it was probably not the best place to hide, since it wasn’t actually concealed at all, and now she couldn’t get to either of the hallways, which might actually get her out of the way of the vampires.

   Xander, to Harmony’s disgust, had pushed Cordelia behind him, and then shoved her toward one of the halls. “Get Buffy!” he’d muttered before she’d run off.

   Buffy? Buffy had been dead for years. Of course, there was that new guidance counselor, who  _ looked _ kind of like Buffy, her cousin, so maybe Xander had meant her? But she was totally old, so Harmony had no idea what use she could be.

   “Hey!” he’d shouted to the blond vampire. “Spike! I thought you were supposed to be on our—”

   “Shut!” the vampire shouted over him, then slowed his voice down. “Your mouth, little man,” he’d said. “I’m the one to do the talking here.”

   A little boy, disturbingly pale (and Harmony knew what that meant these days) came up behind the blond guy and took his hand. The blond guy — Spike — tensed, and looked anything but pleased, but didn’t shake him off. “I sense fear,” the boy said.

   “No kidding,” Spike said.

   The boy looked around. “They’re fighting.”

   “Of course we’re fighting, young man,” Snyder snapped. “And you’re too young for high school.” He didn’t seem to recognize, or care, that they were all vampires. “I’ll have you all know that I was a close, personal friend of Mayor Wilkins. I insist that each and every one of you show me your IDs, or I will call the proper authorities, and have you all arrested, as soon as I... I....”

   The little boy was staring at Snyder, with his head slightly tilted, and Snyder’s bluster totally faded away. Snyder slowly went down on his knees, slack jawed, his eyes unfocused, like he was just waiting to get bit or something. 

   The boy let go of Spike’s hand and went up to Snyder. He lifted his head and stared into the principal’s face. “He’s too old,” he said evenly. “The Master promised me children.”

   “They’re here,” Spike said. “They just got spooked. Everyone ready for our game?” he asked. He smiled at the vampires. Another group of them had arrived from other hallways, and then another knot showed up by the south entrance, and Harmony realized they were surrounded, and this wasn’t just a raid, it was an army, a full on attack, and they were everywhere, and even if she had managed to run down a corridor, one of these knots of vampires would probably have taken her.

   “I don’t want to play,” the little boy said. “I just want to eat. The Master promised me children.” He looked around the room and focused on Xander, who was still standing defensively, probably... Harmony wanted to roll her eyes as she realized he was probably trying to block that short hall and buy Cordelia time for whatever he’d sent her off to do. How dare he be so damn brave and loyal? He was supposed to be lame!

   “This one knows things,” the boy said of Xander. “He’s hiding something.”

   Xander acted very strangely as the little boy came up to him. Like Snyder, he slowly went to his knees, his eyes going unfocused. “You should find out what he knows,” the boy added.

   One of the other vampires handed over his own orphan to one of his buddies and came up to grab Xander, dragging him away from Harmony’s view.

   He moved on from Xander and looked down, spotting Harmony under the table. Harmony squealed and scrabbled back, wanting to get as far away from the creepy vampire child as possible, and then... stopped. The boy’s eyes were like deep pools of black, death within his tiny innocent face. Why bother? Death was inevitable. The lamb was the food for the lion. There was no point to any of it. Of course she was only food. She stopped struggling, her face going slack, and prepared to bend her neck, to present herself to the lion, to die as was her only place in the world....

   And the boy moved on, uninterested in her, passing on to some of the others, turning off their will to live. Each person he came to stopped struggling against their captors and stared vacantly into space, ready to die.

   “And this one,” he said, stopping at another one. “This one has power.”

   The vampire holding that student strode forward, dragging his prisoner by the hair. It was Willow.

   “Right,” Spike said, grabbing her away from him. “Any others I should take a note of, oh Annoying One?”

   “There’s much fear here.”

   “Right. Would never have guessed. You’re a sodding Nostradamus,” Spike said.

   “They don’t look much like children,” the Annoying One added.

   “They do to Gramps. He’s old as the sodding hills.”

   “He lied, then.”

   “All vampires lie,” Spike snapped.

   “Too right they do!” Xander shouted from across the room. Whatever the Annoying One had done to him seemed to have worn off. “You wait until Buffy finds out you’re—”

   “Shut him up!” Spike shouted loud, and the vampire holding Xander cuffed him, hard.

   Very hard. Xander went down. Harmony found her own encounter with the Annoying One — surely that wasn’t his real name? — had also worn away, and she was able to watch as Xander fell, blood splattering from the side of his head.

   “Xander!” Willow shouted.

   “Hang on,” said the Annoying One. He came up to Xander, sprawled on the ground. He was only barely moving. “Did you say Buffy?”

   Xander only groaned.

   “All right,” Spike said, striding forward. He shoved the Annoying One out of the way and grabbed Xander by the shirt. “I need to borrow the little boy, then. Find out what else he knows.”

   “No!”

   “And if you’re so damn concerned, missy, I’ll deal with you, too!” Spike snapped at her. He dragged Willow by the collar. “So I’ll put these two somewhere safe until after the fireworks are over. She’s got power, you said?”

   “Yes,” the Annoying One said evenly.

   “Right, then. These ones are mine. For the rest, I want the game to be played right. Everyone? Are all the guards at the entrances, people?” he asked.

   There was a general consensus.

   “I want a good, fair fight. This is a message we’re sending, yeah? You can’t just make up the rules as you go along. A public school is for the public.”

   “You are a liar and a monster and I’m—”

   “Shut it, Red!” Spike snapped at Willow. “You two, guard the windows!” He directed the two vampires who had had Willow and Xander to block the shattered window case, then he dragged the two students off, Xander looking barely conscious, Willow still shouting at him, threatening to unleash the fires of hell on Spike’s ass, the second she got hold of some spell ingredients.

   The vampires, except for the ones at the doors, all dragged their chosen victims to the center of the room. The orphan who had been taking her inhaler was having a full on asthma attack now, and was gasping in the arms of her captor.

   “She’s annoying,” said the Annoying One.

   “Not my fault,” said the vampire holding her.

   “Then kill her,” the Annoying One said.

   The vampire sank his teeth in, and the girl screamed through her wheezes. Then her screams faded, and she started to whimper, and then... she didn’t even do that anymore. Harmony felt sick. She... she’d been thinking pretty much the same thing not ten minutes ago. God... was she some kind of monster?

   The girl was dropped on the ground, and her dead eyes stared at Harmony under the table, as if accusing her of having killed her.  _ But I didn’t! _ Harmony wanted to tell her. She’d just hadn’t wanted to listen to her stupid asthma. Was that the same as wanting her to die?

   Her inhaler had dropped out of her pocket as she hit the ground.

   “Oi!” came Spike’s voice. “What was that?”

   “He told me to,” said the vampire, pointing at the Annoying One.

   Spike shoved the vampire aside and glared into the Annoying One’s face. “I gave instructions!”

   “So did I,” said the boy. The two vampires stared each other down, and even Harmony could sense there was a crackle of something between them, when the boy turned away and stared, his eyes wide, at someone else. “What are  _ you _ doing here?” he demanded.

   Harmony shifted under the table and saw the new guidance counselor standing in the breezeway, holding a fire axe.

   “Fi-Fi-Foe-Fum,” said Spike quietly. “I smell the blood—”

   “She’s a slayer!” shouted the Annoying One.

   “You shouldn’t have come here, Spike,” Ms. Summers said, striding more carefully into the room. “Someone could get the idea you’re a bad guy.”

   “I know her. That’s the slayer, Buffy Summers!” the Annoying One cried out again. “The one I led to the Master, the one whose blood released him. We killed her!”

   Harmony was confused. Ms. Summers was a slayer, like Faith? And she was Buffy? And she was  _ dead _ ? She couldn’t begin to understand.

   “Well, now,” Spike said, circling around. “I’ve known some folks that have come back from the dead in my time. Doesn’t always leave them in the best shape.”

   “Oh, I don’t know,” said Ms. Summers — or Buffy, apparently. (Wasn’t she too old to be Buffy?) “I think I’ve got the shape of things pretty well. Nice buddies.”

   “You know her?” the Annoying One demanded.

   “We fought,” Buffy said quickly. “Years ago. Before I came to Sunnydale. Didn’t we, Spike?”

   “Oh, we certainly fought, slayer,” Spike said. “We went a few rounds, had a gay old time of it. I should never have left you alive.”

   “Like you had much of a choice.”

   “I don’t like it much when people say I have no choice,” Spike said with a snarl.

   Buffy tilted her head back. “Oh. Well, we’ll have to see what we can do about that. What are you doing here, Spike?”

   “You’re not rescinding your invitation now, are you?” Spike said. He snatched a flyer off the nearest pillar. “Look at this. Open house, all invited, for the whole twenty-four hours. Even got this official looking signature on the bottom here from the school principal.” He laughed. “Shame your little scheme didn’t go as planned.”

   “Yeah. It sucks when plans go south.”

   “I can show you sucking,” Spike said with a grin. “I can suck the juices right out of you.”

   Harmony shuddered, knowing already that he was talking about killing the slayer, but there was something undeniably sensual in the way he was sliding his hand along his stomach, and there was something in his eyes or in his voice or....  _ Dammit, Harmony, don’t be stupid and get a crush on a vampire now. Larry was bad enough! _ She wouldn’t even let herself think about Xander.

   “You’re telling me it was just this stupid flyer that dragged you all here?” Buffy asked, circling.

   “What are you waiting for?” the Annoying One shouted at Spike. “Are you going to kill her or not?” He tossed his innocent looking head, and pointed at two burly looking thugs. “You, you, kill her.”

   “Wait!” Spike shouted, but too late. The two vampires lunged, while Spike went for the kid. Harmony sort of wanted to watch the fight, but she was drawn by Spike, who had lifted the boy up. “ _ You  _ are not a warrior, you little pissant brat!”

   “ _ You _ are taking too long!” the boy shouted back at him.

   The whoosh and cries of two dusted vampires behind him told everyone why Spike was in charge. “And you just got our men killed,” Spike snapped.

   The other vampires finally seemed to catch on that Buffy was a threat. “Protect the Anointed One!” someone shouted, and they rushed forward, dragging the boy out of Spike’s hands.

  “Yeah, good idea, that,” Spike said. “Get him out of here.”

   The boy started screaming, shouting that he hadn’t gotten his treat yet, and he didn’t want to go home, but Spike looked a little more relaxed now that the boy had been dragged back out the window. He turned back to Buffy, whose eyes were bright, her hand tight around the fire axe. “This looks familiar,” Spike said with a bit of a breath behind his voice. “This is gonna be a fun play. You know you’re not the first slayer I’ve fought, cutie.”

   “I’ll be the last,” she said with a naughty grin. “But do you know what, Spike?” Her grin broadened. “You’re gonna have to catch me first!”

   She spun and hightailed it down the hallway.

   She _ left? _ Harmony was appalled. She was supposed to be the  _ Slayer!  _ That was supposed to be a big thing, right? Spike laughed, and shouted behind him, “No one starts the meal without my say so!” and pelted down the hallway after the slayer.

   It was chaos after that. Someone apparently was shouting that they had to follow Spike, someone else was shouting that he’d told them to wait, someone else said why did they have to care what he did anyway, someone else asked why the Anointed One had had to leave. Someone declared that couldn’t really be Buffy Summers, someone else wondered loudly what had happened to the other slayer Faith — good question. Harmony hadn’t seen her in over a week, now that she thought about it.

   And then a little while after that Buffy and that Spike character came running back, fighting brilliantly. “Whatever you sods do,” Spike shouted as he ran past. “Stick to your posts!”

   “Unless you want to watch your lieutenant dusted in the quad!” Buffy taunted. “Then you can all hit the roof.”

   “None of that,” Spike snapped. “None of you buggers deserve to watch me kill the slayer!”

   And they were gone again.

   “Uh... do any of you know the way up to the roof?” asked one of the vampires.

   “I do,” said another one — Harmony thought she’d had a math class with him the year before.

   “Well, screw that, I’m gonna watch the fight!”

   Most of the other vampires agreed with him, and they followed, some of them dragging victims with, some of them looking torn and leaving theirs before following. The two vampires by the window looked anxious, though. “What do you...?”

   “They said to guard the window,” said the other.

   “Yeah, but... I mean... a slayer.”

   They hesitated another minute.

   “What if they try to get out?”

   One of them looked behind him. “Anointed One and his keepers are still in the van,” he said.

   “So they’d catch anyone...?”

   “Looks like.”

   “You wanna?”

   “The others are on the roof?”

   They abandoned their posts.

   “Finally!” came the sound of Mr. Giles’ voice less than ten seconds after the vampires left. He, Ms. Calendar, and Cordelia were all running down the hallway with bundles of paper in their hands.

   “I’m just glad I could get the office copier to work,” Ms. Calendar said. “Not like Mr. Snyder ever likes it when someone uses his xerox.”

   “He doesn’t like to pay for toner,” Mr. Giles said.

   “That doesn’t matter!” Cordelia said brusquely. “Every single flier, particularly on the doors, they said! Do you really think it’ll work?”

   “Since it’s the invitation that’s allowing them, and the invitation was misinterpreted,” Giles said.

   “It’s not like a regular invite, that’ll let them in from then on,” Ms. Calendar said. “Besides, with this cross on the new fliers, and the incantation written on it for good measure, it should rescind the invite Snyder let get blasted around with his god damned Open House!”

   Cordelia quickly taped a flier to the nearest pillar. “We gotta get these up....” she muttered.

   “Can I help?” said one of the orphans, picking himself up from the floor.

   “Hell yes!” Cordy announced, and handed off sheafs of paper to half a dozen students who had been able to shake off the terror. “Every door,” she told them. “And every window for good measure, at least the windows in the hallways. If you see a vampire, though, run! Don’t try to fight, just get out of his way!”

   Harmony thought about getting up too, but the vampires might come back, and... and the orphans were gonna be better at this, anyway. Really,  _ they’d _ already faced vampires, right? Or their parents had, once. Didn’t that have something to do with genetics? Harmony half expected Snyder to get up, too, but whatever the Annoying or Anointed or whatever he was called One had done seemed to last longer on Snyder. He was still kneeling glassy eyed in the middle of the student’s lounge.

   “Hurry, hurry!” Cordelia announced as she ran on, and the orphans scattered with their fliers. “That fight won’t keep them occupied forever!”

   She was in such a hurry one of the fliers dropped and wafted under the table with Harmony. She looked down at it.

   “SUNNYDALE HIGH SCHOOL WELCOMES THE SUNNYDALE TEEN GROUP HOME” she read. “Open house from three until five, only five, that was one full hour before sunset, and the open house ended then, way before it got dark. And only humans were invited anyway, and the open house is OVER OVER OVER!”  Then there was some gobbledygook in some foreign language that Harmony had seen a lot lately, but still didn’t know what it was. And the thing didn’t have a picture of Cordelia in her Homecoming Crown sitting with the orphans, like the other Open House fliers had had. Instead it just had a big serious black cross.

   Could that actually help? Could they rescind the invite? God, Harmony hoped they could.

   The sounds of a fight were coming from outside, wafting through the broken window.

   “Come on, slayer!” Spike said, running past backwards. He paused, bouncing on his toes. “Gonna have you on your knees!” 

   “Oh, you’d like that, wouldn’t you?” Buffy said, circling him as she came into view. “You think you got what it takes to finish me off?”

   “Give me half a chance, I’ll have you screaming for hours,” Spike said.

   They actually looked like they were having fun! 

   Then they were gone again.

   And a minute or so later, there was another sound. A roar. A vast, loud, disappointed roar, which seemed to be coming from the roof. A few seconds after that figures dropped down past the broken window, muttering. “How’d they get the doors barred?”

   “I don’t know! The Master’s gonna be pissed though.”

   “Where’s Spike?”

   “I think he’s still fighting that slayer. Unless she dusted him.”

   “That was some fight though. Sure it’s the whole school, and not just that door on the roof?”

   The vampire who said that tried to get back through the broken window. Harmony cringed, but he was repelled as if he’d hit a rubber wall. “Dammit,” said the vampire. “They really screwed us royal.”

   “We’ll be lucky to make it out of the night still flesh and blood,” said another one. “Dust is gonna fly tonight. The Master’s gonna have to blame  _ someone _ for this fuck up.”

   “I’m betting Spike.”

   “I’m betting the Annoying One. All he does is whine.”

   And they were gone. A few minutes later, Cordelia and the two teachers came past, and Cordelia was laughing.

   “Did you see the looks on their faces?” Cordelia was saying. “When they tried to get through the door, and found the revised invitation on the window? My god, I think they could have understood it if it had been real magic or something, but just basic misunderstanding?”

   “It does seem to have worked out, doesn’t it,” Mr. Giles said evenly.

   “Anyway, I’m going to get Xander. I’m so, so glad Spike got them out of the way. Willow should be taking care of him, right? I really hope he didn’t get hit too hard.”

   Cordelia strode off toward the library, and Mr. Giles and Ms. Calendar looked at each other.

   “Well,” he said.

   “Well,” she said.

   They stared awkwardly at each other.

   “I’m glad we can still....”

   “Yeah.” 

   Their awkward staring was interrupted by Buffy bursting through the doors. “We did it, we did it, we did it!” She looked around the students lounge. “Anyone still here hiding, we can go to the dorm rooms now!” she announced. “I think some hot cocoa and first aid are probably in order.”

   Did she mean that? There was some scuffling as some hiding students snuck out from under other tables or behind the couches. Buffy came up and cocked her head at Snyder, then slapped him across the face. He blinked, and then looked up. “Someone, get him to the dorm room,” she said, and handed him off to the nearest orphan, who rolled his eyes, but took the still-dazed principal under wing. 

   It was. It was over! Thank  _ everything _ . Harmony relaxed, letting her head fall back. God, tonight had been hell! She turned to climb out from under the table...

   And ew. Oh, god, there was that corpse from earlier. She cringed away from it. Ick. She didn’t want to accidentally touch it or anything. How was she going to manage this?

   As if Mr. Giles had read her mind, he muttered to Buffy, “And... uh... the bodies?”

   Buffy sighed. “I’ll take care of them. We’ll leave them here in the students lounge for now. Respectfully, until morning.” Ew. Harmony was never eating in the students lounge again! “Before I get to that, are we sure all the vampires went up to the roof?”

   “It looks like it,” Ms. Calendar said. “You should do a sweep, though, to make sure none are hiding—”

   She was cut off by Cordelia, running down the hallway, and... it sounded like she was sobbing.

   “Cordelia?” Buffy asked, but Cordelia ran down the corridor without looking at her.

   “Cordy!” Xander came running down the hallway after her. He was staggering, blood still staining the side of his head. “Cordy, wait! Cordy!”

   Willow came after, looking subdued. “We... we didn’t mean to,” she said to Buffy.

   “What happened?”

   “She... she walked in... we were locked in the book cage, and Xander was hurt... I kissed him. It was just... the vampires... we thought we were going to die, and.....”

   “Shit,” Buffy muttered. “Come on, let’s see if I can....” Harmony lost the thread as Buffy collected Willow and followed Cordelia and Xander down the hallway.

   “Let’s go. I think some of those kids need bandages,” Ms. Calendar said.

   “Let’s hope this incident won’t make the house leader think twice.”

   “Well. The walls are working now....” Ms. Calendar’s voice trailed off, too.

   Harmony’s heart was starting to work properly again, and the walls were working, the vampires were gone or all up on the roof, the battle was over. Now she just had to sneak past that... corpse... with the inhaler.... She shuddered as she picked her way past it, and then stood up, a little shaky, but alive and triumphant and free...!

   Only to find herself face to face with the vampire Spike.

   He looked startled to see her. She was shocked to see him — Buffy had said all the vampires were gone, hadn’t she? No one would have invited him in, would they? Her mouth went dry, her vision went grey, and she was pretty sure she’d be peeing her pants if she hadn’t been lucky enough to have hit the bathroom before the whole thing went down. She shivered before him, rigid with terror.

   “Harmony?” he said, his face twisted into an expression she couldn’t read.

   “Uh... yeah?” she said. How the hell did he know her name? “Um... um... look.” She was babbling. Cute boys could make her babble. Mortal terror, she’d learned in the last year, could make her babble. The two together made it really hard to talk. “Hi? Uh... y-you know, you don’t want to eat me. Um... please?” She caught sight of one of the orphans as she came crawling out from behind the vending machine. The girl took one look at Harmony with Spike, squeaked, and ran off toward the dorm rooms. “Look!” Harmony pointed. “Eat Trisha! She’s fat, she’s got a lot more blood than me. And she has no fashion sense, like,  _ at all. _ ”

   Spike seemed to sag. “Bloody hell. You didn’t change a lick, did you?”

   “Huh?”

   “Never mind,” he said. He grabbed Harmony by the hair and dragged her down the corridor. Harmony squirmed and wrestled, afraid, but really too afraid to try and hit the vampire or anything. “You dropped one,” he said, shoving her through the dorm room door.

   Harmony fell to her knees, and whirled, expecting to have to hide again, or watch as Buffy fought the vampire, or something, and found….

   Huh. He was gone? What was  _ that _ all about? Why didn’t he eat her? What had he been doing in the school, anyway? She was really confused now.

   Most of the orphans were huddled together on bunk beds in the center of the room, talking to each other, a unit forged by suffering or something. Xander lay on a cot by the far window, with Willow next to him, saying over and over again he needed to lie down, but he kept saying he needed to talk to Cordelia.

   “I don’t think she wants to talk to you right now,” Willow was saying.

   “But I need to. She doesn’t... understand....”

   Mr. Giles and Ms. Calendar looked up from where they were helping the group home leader tend a scratch on her arm. Buffy was by the teacher’s office, which was supposed to be the dorm mother or whatever’s bedroom these days. “Cordelia?” she kept saying to the closed door. “I know, it’s really hard to understand. Can you come out? Will you just let me in, at least?”

   “What’s wrong?” Harmony said.

   “Bit of high school drama,” Giles said. “Nothing important.”

   “May not be important for you!” Harmony said. She knew how important high school drama could be when everything else was going to shit. You couldn’t afford to abandon your friends these days, particularly not when there just weren’t enough people left in school to make a new social circle. She marched over to the bathroom door and knocked on it. “Cordy?”

   “Just go away,” Cordelia announced.

   “Come on, Cordy,” Harmony said, cajoling. “It’s me. Harmony. I’m your best friend.”

   There was a long pause, and then Cordelia opened the door.

   “I’m gonna help check out the rest of the school, make sure all the vamps are out,” Buffy said.

   Cordelia closed the door behind Harmony and sniffled. The office was a bedroom now, but a pretty spartan one, with a cheap twin bed by the window, and a bookcase and a bedside table. It was crappy, but it was somewhere to sit, so she pulled Cordelia onto the bed, and forgetting everything about vampires and death and destruction, offered her best friend a shoulder to cry on. “So what happened?” Harmony asked.

   And Cordelia started sobbing. She sobbed and sobbed, weeping and muttering and holding herself. From what Harmony could understand, Xander and Willow were making out right under Cordy’s nose, and then Willow had laughed about it. Or something. At least, that’s what Harmony decided had happened, because that made sense. The whole idea of Cordelia dating Xander Harris in the first place had been laughable! And he’d just proven it, that he was nothing but a lameazoid and a freaktard and a loser and he’d never been worthy of Cordelia, and if he couldn’t see that, then he was just... a big jerk.

   Cordelia laughed. “Yeah,” she said. “Yeah, I guess... I guess you’re right.”

   “We should never have come to this stupid orphan party in the first place,” Harmony said. “It was total social suicide. Almost  _ real _ suicide. What do you say tomorrow we kick the dust of Xander Harris from your feet, and start a real homecoming campaign.”

   “Homecoming’s over,” Cordy sniffled.

   “But we’re really home now!” Harmony said. “We’ll send Xander and those losers he hangs out with back to the cheap seats, and you and I will live the high-life. Tomorrow we’ll skip school, and we’ll get facials, and get our hair done, and get a perfect pedicure, and we won’t hang out with orphans or losers or magic nerds or anything. It’ll just be us again. We don’t have to fight monsters. We don’t have to help charities. We don’t have to do  _ anything. _ What do you say?”

   “That... that sounds really good,” Cordy said. “You’re right. I should never have looked at Xander Harris twice. And – and I’ll never look at him again!” she announced.

   “That’s the Cordy I know!” Harmony said. She leaned back against the window, ready to plan a whole day of doing nothing important, and was startled when it partly opened under her weight. It hadn’t been locked. Well, not like it —

   And a cold hand suddenly had hold of her pretty blonde hair, and dragged her out into the school grounds, and into darkness. Harmony screamed, tried to fight, tried to grab the windowsill, tried… tried to  _ do _ something! But she was young and human and fragile, and there was nothing she _could_ do. Not about this. Sharp fangs had pierced her throat before she was even dragged all the way outside.

 


	19. Chapter 19

  
  


   “So. How many times would I have to blow you to get a cigarette?” Faith said, dropping down from the tunnel above Spike. “If you could keep it under ten...?”

   Spike whirled, vamping up, and then laughed. “Startled me, slayer,” he said through his fangs. He pulled a pack out of his coat pocket and offered her one before lighting up himself.

   Oh,  _ score! _ Faith took the proffered miracle and put it to her lips, her hands shaking a little as she lit it. She had been scrounging the gutters lately for half smoked butts. Not too many vampires smoked, but enough did, and so long as she was quick and stayed away from windows she had fairly free rein during the day. Not that there weren’t other demons she had to avoid in the demon district during daylight hours. But she’d scoured every room she could get access to for any type of tobacco, searched the pockets of every demon she had managed to slay (those who had pockets), and cursed all vampires for dusting before she could search them for cigarettes. The craving circled in her thoughts like buzzards, just constantly. Waiting for her to die....

   Catching sight of Spike while she was down in the tunnels was like being given a reprieve. She’d hidden at first when she’d heard the sound of his approach, but she’d caught a glimpse of his distinct blond head through her narrow hiding space, and thrown caution to the winds, in the hopes he wasn’t being followed. (And that he really was on her side, but that was only a vague doubt after Angel’s reassurances. If Spike was on the wrong side, she was probably already dead, anyway.)

   She took in a long, long drag, and... needed to sit down. She perched on an exposed pipe, a little light headed, a little queasy, her heart rate shooting up just a tad... all that stuff she’d been missing. She let the smoke out in a sigh of relief, and then took another long, hard drag.

   “Been awhile, huh?” Spike asked, leaning against the sewer wall.

   “Nearly a week,” Faith said. “Angel won’t bring me any. Says vampires can smell it, and the smoke’s a dead giveaway. He even bitched about the cherry glowing too bright. Like I couldn’t hide that.”

   She was starting to feel better already. Angel was actually pissed off that she was addicted to the things. Really thought she should get off them. She’d been smoking since she was fourteen. She didn’t tell him to stop buying human blood at Willy’s (and she knew he did, though he’d tried to pretend he never drank human anymore at all. Animal blood doesn’t come in IV bags with “O POSITIVE” stamped on them). He had no business casting aspersions on her addictions when he indulged his own.

   “He’s probably just worried about you,” Spike said.

   “I’ll be more likely to make a mistake scrounging for butts than I would letting loose a little smoke,” Faith said. “Besides, I’m safe most of the day, if I stay outside.”

   “Thought you were looking pretty tan, there.”

   “I spend a lot of time hunkered on rooftops,” Faith admitted.

   “So what are you doing down here?”

   “Just about to ask you the same question.” She took another long puff and examined the vampire. Spike did not look like he had when he first came to Sunnydale. In the course of the last few weeks he’d gone thinner, lots paler, and there was something about his eyes that bothered her. And it wasn’t just the yellow — he’d let that down already. There was something hollow. “Don’t see many vamps in the tunnels after sundown.”

   “I didn’t want anyone who might have been lurking outside the school to see me come out. I know they didn’t catch that Buffy invited me in again, but I don’t want them to know I can come and go out of there. Easier to come back through the tunnels. You?”

   “Most of the vamps enjoy the nightlife, when they can get it,” Faith said. “They scorn the sewers when the sun’s down. My territory then.”

   “Still, be careful.”

   “I am. What’s this about the school?”

   Spike filled her in on the details.

   “Huh. So B’s plan to lock up the school worked, huh?”

   “I don’t think she realized how brassed off the Master would get over it,” Spike told her. “She was just thinking  _ protect the kids _ . The Master instantly thought  _ Hellmouth _ .”

   “Gonna cause a war?”

   “I got us through this battle,” Spike said, tossing his half finished cigarette down. “One day at a time.”

   Faith was trying really hard not to dive for his fallen dog end. She’d been so desperate for butts and ashes lately that a half smoked dog end like that looked like solid gold. “That how you handling it?” she asked him.

   “How I have to,” Spike said. “How are you holding up?”

   “Five by five,” Faith said, taking in another puff. She let the bravado fall off. “I’m tired,” she confessed. “It’s hard to find time to sleep safe. Roofs aren’t that comfortable, and I can’t be too loud on them, in case there’s a demon inside.”

   “Gotta be tough,” Spike said. “I mean, you can’t even let yourself be seen.”

   “I’ve been seen plenty,” Faith said. “It’s just I gotta kill anyone who does. It’s a bit like a video game, sort of a first person shooter, like? Just wander the game board and make sure you take out any goons you see.”

   “But there’s no home base to get to,” Spike said. “And there’s no fallen health packs for you anywhere.”

   “There’s plenty of those,” Faith said. “Angel’s got stuff squirreled away all over the district.”

   That wasn’t, strictly speaking, true. There was food and water and clean clothes and extra stakes to replace the ones that got taken by dust. There were bandages and chewing gum and he’d even brought her a deck of cards to play solitaire, and a couple of paperbacks when she’d confessed she was going so crazy with boredom even books looked appealing. But there were no cigarettes. No booze. No music. No... time. There was no way to just relax, and Faith was starting to feel a bit like a demon herself. Maybe B was right and there  _ was _ a demon inside her, and the stress was making the human hunker down and hide a bit.

   She glanced up. Maybe that was what she was seeing in Spike’s eyes.

   “Speaking of which, what the hell did you two do to Ange?” she asked, rather than get into any of that.

   “What do you mean?”

   “Every time I’ve seen him since I got stuck here he’s been jumpy. He’ll barely let me touch him anymore. Did B do something mean?”

   Spike shook his head. “Just told him the truth,” he said. “He didn’t tell you?”

   “Tell me what?”

   “His soul could slough off if he gets a happy. Basically if he gets shagged by anyone he gives a shit about.”

   Faith felt like she’d been punched in the gut. “He what?”

   Spike elaborated, telling a brief version of how he understood Angel’s curse to go. “And if he gets all soulless, he’s no different from any other vamp. Probably just think you were a tasty treat, and chomp down. If he didn’t decide to torture you a bit first.”

   Faith’s hand around the cigarette was shaking again. It was nearly out. “And it’s... it’s just sex, right? Just if he goes for the full twist?”

   “I think so. It’s a bit wonky, that, kinda hard to pin down. Perfect happiness is dodgy business. Basically, if the news made him miserable, we’re all safer for it.”

   The idea of Angel being just like all the other vampires she had to slay every day... just like the Master... just like Kakistos, who had killed her first watcher... no. She couldn’t accept that. It wasn’t... it wasn’t fair! But Spike was talking like it was just a matter of facts, though, and he and B really knew their shit. She didn’t doubt they were right, it was just... it didn’t seem at all fair.

   And Angel really should have fucking told her already. She thought they were best friends! They’d met up, he’d had his chances. But he’d gone squirrelly and silent and was cutting her off. And now it seemed she was losing him anyway, even with the fucking soul still there.... Dammit.

   Spike was still leaning against the wall, completely oblivious to the screaming that had started in the corner of Faith’s mind. He didn’t look unobservant, though, his attention clearly on the tunnels. She trusted his vampire hearing to warn her if anyone else was coming. She could dart back up the ladder to the maintenance tunnel alongside the pipe, and if that failed, well, there was always her handy dandy stakes. She liked that he looked so wary. She believed Angel when he said the guy was reliable. 

   “But all that’s not your deal though, right?”

   Spike shook his head.

   “So how’d you get your soul?”

   “Fought for it. Thought it the right thing to do. To have it.”

   “Why?”

   Spike shrugged. “Lots of reasons. Buffy was one. Mostly I was sorta messed up and twisted around about things. Thought it might help make stuff more clear.”

   “And did it?”

   “Well, it was starting to, and then some evil power from beyond time decided to go playing mumblety-peg with my noggin, so it got kinda hard to tell. It seems to be helping now.”

   “You fought for it,” Faith said. “So why couldn’t Angel do that?”

   “Huh?”

   “If Angel lost his soul, couldn’t he fight to get it back?”

   Spike shook his head. “When he loses it, he... well, I don’t know about this Angel, but the one in my universe doesn’t want it back. He likes being evil.”

   That sounded strange. “And you didn’t?”

   Spike looked down.

   “Even before the soul... you didn’t?” she pressed.

   “It had its charms.”

   “Are you enjoying playing it now?”

   Spike looked as if she’d twisted the knife. “I just helped Buffy carry nine — count that, pet,  _ nine _ — dead teenage kids into the center of a school, waiting for a coroner to come in the morning.” He shook his head. “I don’t care what the blood tastes like. ‘S not worth that.”

   Faith could have pressed it, asked for details, but really it didn’t matter too much how Spike felt about it all. He was what he was. Angel was who Faith cared about.

   “Angel hasn’t been seeing you around much lately.”

   “The dig’s finally going. Master just called me in for this job. Which I gotta go end right, in a minute. We’ll see if I make it through the night undusty.”

   “And if you do?” Faith asked. “What’s the ETA on the pretty?”

   Spike shook his head. “I don’t know. But I do know, with you in here, it’s a damn good thing Buffy’s around.”

   “Why?”

   “It needs to be King Arthured out of the bedrock by a slayer,” Spike said. “Unless you got any more slayers hiding under a rock somewhere, it would be stuck there until kingdom come.”

   “Oh, I wouldn’t worry about it. You could find someone else to get the pokey.”

   “Like who? Needs a slayer, pet, and you’re the only two on the register.”

   “There’d be someone else for you,” Faith said honestly. “Just wait until I get killed.”

 

***

   “There’s one more outside,” Xander said quietly. “Harmony.”

   Buffy cringed. “That’s ten.  _ Ten. _ ”

   “Only six of them were residents, though. That still leaves us fifteen to keep the dorm going.”

   “That is one  _ hell _ of an attrition!” Buffy snapped at Jenny. She looked down at the line of bodies in the center of the students’ lounge. In the bright light of the early morning shining through the windows, it looked impossible that they could have been killed by vampires. But they had been. All of them under eighteen. Most of them excited by doing something that was going to make them, and their school, and their fellow students safer. 

   The school was safe now, though. Really and truly safe from vampires, for all students, at any time of day. The group leaders had accepted that this sort of thing could have happened anywhere, that it wasn’t the fault of the school dorm setting, so they’d agreed to stick it out now that the disinvite had been proven to work. But at such a price....

   “I hope this has opened your eyes, young lady,” Snyder said behind her. Buffy turned. Snyder was looking as pompous and full of himself as ever. “Students don’t belong in school. They should be sent home at the end of every school day. They should be sent home at the  _ beginning _ of every school day, if you ask me,” he muttered, almost to himself. “That’s the only way to get any discipline around here.”

   Buffy had just about had enough of this. “Do you hear yourself?” she demanded. “Seriously, do you listen? Is there any kind of soul or conscience in you? Ten of your students are dead, do you hear me,  _ dead! _ ”

   “That’s not  _ my _ doing,” Snyder said smugly. “In fact, if you hadn’t been trying to drag them all into this, they wouldn’t have been in any danger. I blame  _ you _ for this. You and that other slayer... Faith. Well. Fortunately I won’t have to deal with either of you for much longer. You aren’t who you say you are. _ I  _ can have you arrested,  _ Buffy. _ And as of today, that’s more than seven days of complete truancy from school for that other young lady. She has been expelled.”

   Buffy came up to him. “Faith has been the only thing keeping this school from being overrun by vampires. Do you get that?  _ I  _ was the only thing protecting this school. I’m  _ still _ the only thing protecting this school. This whole project was an attempt to  _ protect the school. _ To at least make it so that a hundred vampires couldn’t throw cloaks over their heads or come up through the sewers and slaughter the entire student body during home room. Do you get all that? Is that what you want? Would that give you the discipline you crave?”

   “If such a thing happened,” Snyder said with a bit of a sniff. “Well. It wouldn’t have anything to do with me.”

   Buffy did something she had wanted to do ever since her sophomore year. She grabbed Snyder by the lapels of his ill fitting suit and slammed him up against the wall. “Yes! It! Would!” she barked into his face. “Don’t you get it? When you screw up, the kids pay for it. When you hire a demonic teacher, the kids pay for it. When you let a student fall through the cracks, the kids pay for it. When you get all officious and overzealous and try to throw out the people who are trying to make things better because trouble follows them,  _ the children are the ones who pay for it! _ Not you. Not discipline. Children’s lives! Marcie, Jonathan, Amy, Oz, these are children the state has seen fit to put under your care for eight hours a day, and you throw them under the bus! In the name of  _ discipline  _ and  _ order,  _ you end up caring nothing about their  _ lives _ .”

   Snyder was clearly terrified, but he wasn’t backing down. “Their lives are not my priority. That’s not my  _ job _ . My job is to see to it that the school stays orderly and the system works smoothly. No one ever said that the children’s  _ lives _ were my responsibility.”

   “But they _ are.  _ That’s the whole point! If you care so little about them, why don’t you just kill them yourself? It would be so much faster than sending away their protectors and then dancing around atop your desk in glee because you got to enforce order.”

   “But that  _ is _ my job,” Snyder said. “At the behest of Mayor Wilkins, kids are reckless, you can’t protect them, so just let them do their thing. He told me himself. ‘Your job is to see to the school, not the students.’”

   Buffy threw the man halfway across the room. “Fine,” she said. He had landed in a sprawl on the carpet in the students lounge, beside the neat line of bodies. “That’s your job? Here’s the school. Here’s what’s in it.” She grabbed Snyder by the back of the neck and shoved his head into the face of the nearest corpse, the freshman with the asthma problem who had been drained dry because she couldn’t stop breathing hard. “This is yours,” Buffy told him. “The weight of her death is on you.”

_ God, that should be literal, _ she thought. What the fuck, why shouldn’t it be? She threw Snyder down onto his back and dragged the dead girl over him, dropping her unceremoniously onto her officious school principal. “And her,” she said, grabbing another corpse. “And him, and him, and her!”

   She was shaking, but she was livid. Snyder stared up at her in some kind of shock under his pile of corpses. 

   “These deaths are on your shoulders, Snyder!  _ You  _ did this! You did  _ all _ of this! Grow up! You’re a human being, you’re part of the human race, and these are your children you’re sending off to be murdered in the name of fucking discipline!”

   “Buffy, maybe—”

   “What?” Buffy rounded on Ms. Calendar. “You gonna tell me to cool it? When as far as you’re concerned, it’s better if there’s a really good chance Angelus could show up and kill half the town? Well, in my world you paid for it yourself, Jenny.” Buffy threw up her hands. “I’m done.” She looked down at the principal, white faced and terrified under the weight of half a dozen corpses. “You like that, Snyder? You’ve lost your slayer, you can face this all on your own. Fucking  _ Open House! _ ” Buffy realized her tears were breaking. She had to get out of there.

   She ran out the door and away. She wanted someone to go to... she needed... but Giles... was frankly terrible at this, and no one else knew her, and Spike... Spike... god, Spike was just gone, gone, utterly unreachable, and... and....

   Suddenly she knew what she wanted. She left all the death behind her and she ran.

***

   Twenty minutes later Joyce Summers looked up from the morning paper and saw the magical apparition of her dead daughter standing, flushed and breathless, in the door of the living room. “Buffy?” She knew her daughter was dead, and the girl there wasn’t really her Buffy. She’d been trying to keep the emotions separate, but....

   “Mom?” Buffy burst into tears, and Joyce opened her arms.

   It didn’t matter that they were from the wrong universe. Her daughter had come home.

***

 

   “It’s just insane,” Buffy said. “Everything’s been going wrong, and even the things that are going  _ right _ are going wrong.”

   “There was a mistake about the Open House, but the dorm project worked, didn’t it? It was a sound idea.”

   “Not if people like Snyder don’t pay any attention,” Buffy said. “And I was able to invite Spike back in, which means any teacher or staff member probably could, and certainly any of the orphan kids.”

   “They know the rules,” Joyce said. “Sunnydale is a very dangerous place these days, and they’ve all lost family members to vampires. There isn’t anyone in Sunnydale who hasn’t lost someone. The kids aren’t going to go inviting people in willy-nilly. Anyone human can just walk in regardless, after all, so they can still have their friends over.”

   “Maybe not, but before I had them moved in....” Buffy sighed.

   “What is it, honey?”

   “Before if they died, it wasn’t really my fault. This was _ all  _ my fault.”

   “No, it wasn’t,” Joyce said.

   “Spike reminded me the school wasn’t just the school, it was the hellmouth. The Master is really protective of it, and I just drew his attention. And now the Anointed One has seen me, so they know I’m here.”

   “They don’t know about Spike, do they? And what happened to Faith? I thought she was helping you.”

   “Faith... can’t help right now. She’s... on another mission.”

   “What can be more important than guarding the hellmouth?”

   “Staying alive,” Buffy said glumly.

   Joyce reached out and hugged her daughter. (She’d stopped trying to think of her as not-really-her-daughter, it was too complicated.) “Well. To that end, we got my CAT scan results back.”

   Buffy looked up.

   “They found it. It’s really tiny.”

   “They found it?” Buffy sighed with relief. Joyce knew she had been more worried if they couldn’t find it, because that would mean it might still be there, they just didn’t know.

   “They told me if there’s no symptoms we can wait and see if it goes away or gets bigger, or arrange for surgery now. Knowing what we know, I told them to just take care of it. I should be going in for surgery next week.”

   “Oh, thank god! After the surgery, I want you to just keep pushing them for brain scans, to make sure you don’t have an aneurism or a blood clot or anything. If it’s a danger, and they notice it, they can get rid of it, but not if you’re not checked....”

   “I  _ know  _ Buffy,” Joyce said with a small laugh. “You told me everything I need to do. I’m gonna be fine. With a less invasive surgery than the one you described, I really don’t think I have anything to worry about. You got to me in time.”

   Buffy hugged her tightly, getting a little teary eyed again. “I’m sorry,” she said into her mother’s shoulder. “I just don’t want to lose you again.”

   “You’re not going to,” Joyce said. She frowned, and then finally said what had been on her mind since the moment she saw Buffy. “Buffy, honey, why don’t you move in here with me? I mean, I know you’re a grown woman now, and I know technically you’re not my Buffy, but... I’d really love to have you back here.” She brushed hair out of her daughter’s face. “I never did finish cleaning out your bedroom, after.... There’s some boxes and things in storage in there, but I can clear them out. It would be almost like having you home for real...?”

   “I... I’d love to, it’s just... uh....” Buffy looked down. “With Faith gone, Angel needs a human to live in his mansion, or he’s at risk from the rest of the demons, and... it’s not fair to ask that of him....”

   There was a heavy knock on the door. Joyce kissed Buffy’s forehead. “We’ll talk about it later,” she said, and went to the front door.

   She was surprised by what she saw there. Three figures, the center one being— “Rupert.” She blushed. They’d gone on three dates since the evening of the Band Cookies. One of them had involved the two them staying up most of the night talking. Two of them had involved them staying up most of the night... not talking. But with Buffy there as well, she felt strangely embarrassed by his presence, as if she were on the cookies again and no more than sixteen years old.

   Well, that was a good thing, really.

   The other reason for the embarrassment might have had something to do with the fact that Rupert’s ex Jenny Calendar was also standing beside him, along with the principal of the school. He had a stain on his white shirt... Joyce didn’t really want to know what had caused it. “Hello, Joyce. Is Buffy here, please?” Rupert asked. “Mr. Snyder and the rest of us wished to speak with her, and she wasn’t at Angel’s.”

   “What do you three want?” Buffy asked from behind Joyce.

   “Buffy,” Rupert said, coming in to her. “We’ve been having a meeting. We were hoping to get your input before we could make any concrete decisions. Weren’t we, Mr. Snyder?”

   “Yeah,” Snyder said, looking more than a little chagrined.

   “Well, why don’t you all come in and sit down?” Joyce asked, gesturing toward the dining room. “I’ll... ah... pour some iced tea.” She was going to be late to the gallery, but... nope. She wasn’t missing this. This was her daughter. It was more important.

   When she came out with the iced tea Buffy and the others were sitting around the table, and Rupert was saying, “So with the current climate Mr. Snyder here was thinking—”

   “I’ll say it!” Snyder said nastily. “Um. Ms. uh... Summers. Upon reflection, I believe that... uh... it might be beneficial to student morale if... uh... you returned to the school.”

   Buffy had already confessed to Joyce that she meant to go back. She had to. But she leaned back in her chair as if she had a major bargaining chip. “Oh.”

   “And to that end he has decided...? Go on,” Ms. Calendar said.

   “We’re offering you a raise,” Snyder said bluntly. “And a new job title as school security guard.”

   “I kinda like being guidance counselor,” Buffy said. “It helps me look after the kids. But a raise is good. What kind of money are we talking here?”

   “Some of that is dictated by the school board,” Ms. Calendar said. “But let’s say, it’s more than they’re paying Giles.”

   “Significantly,” Rupert muttered.

   Buffy nodded. “Well, I’m keeping my old title, and my old office,” she said. “But Faith needs a job, if she’s been expelled.”

   “Faith?” Mr. Snyder scoffed. “Miss Lehane is....” Rupert and Ms. Calendar glared at Snyder, and he seemed to cringe. “Just.... like you, isn’t she.” He swallowed.

   “She’s an emancipated minor. She’s as qualified for a security job as any adult.”

   “But... but she’s nowhere to be found.”

   “And if she never is found, the salary you pay her will revert to the school, won’t it?” Buffy said. “I’ll give her a desk in my office. How does that sound?”

   Snyder swallowed, seemingly unwilling to answer, but Ms. Calendar stood up. “That sounds perfectly reasonable,” she said. “Doesn’t it Mr. Snyder? In exchange for having Buffy back on the staff?”

   “Yes,” Snyder said glumly.

   “Well. That’s settled then,” Rupert said with a small smile.

   “Indeed it is. I’ll expect you back at school bright and early tomorrow young lady!” Snyder said, putting his officiousness back on like a hat. He pointed at Buffy. “And I’ll expect full guidance reports... uh... every Friday!”

   Buffy grinned. “I can probably handle the paperwork.”

   “Well. Fine then. I’ll see myself out.” He strode out of the house with his head high. Only someone who knew him could have told that his ears were red.

   “How reluctant was he?” Buffy asked after Snyder had left.

   “He was desperate to get you back, once we pointed out that there was no reason at all why he himself wasn’t killed last night,” Ms. Calendar said. “When we couldn’t find you at Angel’s, he nearly had a heart attack.”

   “I wanted to talk to you about that,” Joyce said. “Buffy here was... interested in maybe moving back here with me, but she says it wouldn’t be safe for your other fighter, ah... Angel. Is there some other way around that?”

   “Mom, don’t...”

   “There is,” Ms. Calendar said. “It would just take someone human to move in with him.”

   “Mom, there’s no one in Sunnydale who’s going to want to move in with a vampire!” Buffy said, looking resigned. She sighed. “It’s fine, I’ll just deal with it.”

   “I can do it,” Ms. Calendar said.

   Rupert and Buffy both stared at her.

   “I can do it,” she said again. “I should do it. I should have done it before now, or done something, anyway.” She looked up at Buffy. “Angel is my responsibility. I’ll talk to him tonight.”

   “Oh, if this is really what you want, Buffy,” Joyce said, suddenly realizing it might not be. “If you’d rather live in a mansion, rather than with your old mom cramping your style....”

   “Are you kidding? I hate it over there! Too many of the wrong kinds of memories.”

   “Well. That’s settled, too, then,” Rupert said.

   “Oh... oh....” Buffy made a face. “Just... if you two are going to be having sex while I’m here, I don’t want to know about it!”

   Ms. Calendar looked stricken. “Well, I’ll... go and arrange things with Angel,” she said quietly, and left.

   “Oh, I... sorry... I....” Buffy watched as Ms. Calendar left. “I put my foot in it.” Then she looked back at the two of them. “But the injunction still stands!”

   “We’ll go to my apartment to break out the handcuffs,” Rupert said with a small smile.

   “Ripper!”

   Rupert held his hands up innocently, but his smile had turned positively wicked. “What? She already knew!”

 


	20. Chapter 20

 

   Well, there was one thing Spike had to say for the Master. Bloke knew how to torture.

   When he was cut down from the ceiling, he was struck with a sudden sensation of deja vu. Which one was it? “Angelus...?” he asked, because the particular methods of torture had been a little more inventive than Angelus himself used, and that usually meant Dru had been at him, which meant it was Angelus’ turn to patch him up after. Though sometimes they tag teamed. Darla didn’t usually bother with the patching up, so he knew it wasn’t Darla carrying him somewhere soft....

   “Oh, ew.... Do I have to do this? Couldn’t someone else take care of him, and I’ll just come in at the end?”

   “You don’t have to do a thing, far as I’m concerned.”

   Spike knew where he was after that. Because that wasn’t any of his sires, that was Trick, and he was with the Master, and he had been tortured for failing in his mission and letting the hellmouth be closed to them, and okay. Done.

   The other voice didn’t bother caring for him much. Just threw a blanket over him and dropped a bound victim beside him. And Spike was so far gone, he didn’t even think about it. The teeth went in, and the blood pooled into his mouth, and then... no, no, no, _ no, _ no more death, he made himself stop, and he rolled away from the warmth, and he shuddered and tried not to vomit, and the voice said, “Huh. Not spent yet,” and the warmth was taken away.

   He moved in and out of this healing state for a while. When a victim was put next to him he fed, but wouldn’t let himself kill. One died anyway... she had tasted pretty weak. They all had. The demon district was overhunted, and even with the blood extraction, most of the victims there were on their last legs. They were bussing them in now, to feed the growing vampire population. Literally going to the interstate and hijacking busses full of victims.

   Spike kept himself going with visions of Buffy.  _ She will come for me. She will come for me.  _ It was how he had made it through the torture, it was how he was making it through this. Because what was this if it wasn’t torture, still? Starving for blood, but only given living victims that made his soul scream....

_   She will come for me. She will come for me. Buffy will get me out of this. She loves me. She loves me. I’m her champion, her knight in black leather, her light to her dark places, she will come for me — oh, god, Buffy, please, come for me! Get me out of this. _

   The way she’d brush her hair. The sunlight didn’t strike on her bed in the mornings, so she could leave the curtains open, and he’d lie there and watch her, with the sun on her face, making her hair glow, like molten gold. Curled up in their bed, the scent of her pillow beneath his head. He remembered how she’d fall asleep on him while watching movies.  _ Don’t you want to go to bed, pet? Na-unh. I’m comfortable.  _ The way her lips would part, and she’d snore just a little bit, on his lap. Her living heartbeat,  _ du-dun, du-dun, _ making him feel alive beside her. The sparks of her eyes when she’d get pissed off at him. The strength of her... yeah, oh, yes, the way she’d hold him down. But no... no. Nothing rough, no, where was she? He lost her... there! There she was in the bathtub, shaving her legs, running the blade along her skin, smoothing herself, and his hand could slide along the wet slipperiness, nuzzle the sweet flesh, maybe fall into the water... he was drowning... he had drowned... he couldn’t see her, where was she, he’d lost her in the water, he’d... he’d....

   “Buffy!”

   “Boy, you can’t shut up, can you?”

   Spike blinked. He was in a sewer. He was in a sewer, and there was a strangely familiar vampire beside him.

   “ _ Bu-ffy, Bu-ffy! _ ” the vampire mocked. “The slayer scare you that much?”

   Spike blinked up. “Harm?”

   She grinned at him, perky and beautiful as ever, and just as ever not-at-all-Buffy. “Hi! You sure can be a cute little blondie bear, when you’re sleeping, and not all bloody and stuff. They told me to take care of you until you were able to work again. I just got turned! What do you think?” She turned around, showing off her new vampire body.

   Spike rolled onto his back. Bloody hell. They were still torturing him.

 

***

 

   “So what’s so terrible about this Initiative thing, anyway?” Xander was asking. “I mean, the government wants to help us fight the bad demon things. Isn’t that kind of a yay scenario?”

   Buffy shook her head. “It’s not the government, they’re just backed by the government. It’s Walsh. And she’s insane. She’s got this 314 project which makes Frankenstein look like a fluffy little bunny.”

   “You mean Frankenstein’s monster,” Xander pointed out. “Frankenstein was the scientist, so actually, Walsh would be the Frankenstein, and....” Everyone was staring at him. “I’ll just stop saying words now.”

   “Good plan,  _ Harris, _ ” came Cordelia’s voice from behind them. “You should try that  _ before _ you say any, save everyone a lot of time.”

   The whole team turned to look. Cordelia had not been part of their little circle for nearly a week now. She waved her perfectly manicured hand. “I know you guys have your little freak-zone Scooby meeting, but some people actually have English tests they need to study for. Meaning I need a  _ book. _ ” She said the word as if what she really meant was  _ a dead rat. _

   “Couldn’t you buy one?” Xander snapped. “Or does your daddy not believe in books unless they’ve got checks in them?”

   “Like I’d be seen in a nerd store?” Cordelia snapped back. “At least here I can pretend I was doing something pep squad related.”

   “Because the one thing squads need is more related pep,” Xander said, tasting the phrase as he said it. His expression crashed as he realized it did not, when rearranged, in fact sound like an insult. He looked lost.

   “How can I help you, Cordelia?” Giles said, heading that argument off by playing the role of actual librarian.

   “I need something from Dickens? And apparently watching Oliver and Company when I was a kid doesn’t count.”

   Buffy sighed and turned back to the group. Xander, Jenny, and Giles. She would have liked it if Tara and Willow had been there, but they had gotten really intense with the Magic Club, and from what Buffy had seen of how Tara was revamping it, she approved. Tara had taken the club right back to basics, differentiating Wicca the religion from Witchcraft the practice, and integrating the personal religious backgrounds (or lack thereof) of everyone in the club into their own personal magical style. 

   Buffy had already seen a change in how Willow was approaching her magic, integrating her Jewish heritage more closely into her witchcraft practice, while still embracing the alternate modes the Wicca introduced to her. She was also slowing down, comparing it to various mathematical sequences, or chemistry. Frankly Buffy didn’t understand one word in twelve, either of the chemistry, the math, or the magic, but anything that seemed like a change in how Willow approached magic had to be a good thing, so Buffy wasn’t getting in the way.

   Angel wasn’t there either, which didn’t surprise Buffy much. He’d been distancing himself a lot from the Scoobies and Buffy lately, focusing on Faith, and... well, brooding a lot. A lot a lot. More than usual, and this was Angel, so that was actually saying something. Jenny had reported she had confessed to him her familial heritage and her role in Sunnydale before she’d offered to move in. He’d agreed, so Buffy could go back to her mother, but had asked Jenny not to go wandering the mansion when he wasn’t there, which was not something he’d ever asked Buffy. (Not that Buffy had wanted to. She’d seen most of it in her own world, and didn’t think Angel was likely to have changed it much.)

   But with both Faith and Angel gone, the Scooby meetings had become deeply depressing affairs. Buffy never would have thought that  _ Angel  _ could be something to lighten a mood, but he did have a bit of self-effacing humor which would rise at times, and when he dared to be social he was sort of boyishly effusive about it. But Jenny was distant and more dutiful than friendly these days. Xander was bitter. Willow, when she deigned to show up at all, was distracted (Buffy would have bet good money that she was slowly falling in love with Tara and was hiding it, just like what had happened in her own universe.) Only Giles was in a good mood, and he didn’t dare show it around Jenny, so he was always awkward and fumbling whenever she was part of a meeting.

   Buffy herself was miserable. Because Angel had heard a rumor from the demon district that had made her blood run cold.

   Spike had been punished.

   By the time the rumor had gotten to them it was reported that the torture had stopped and Spike had been given a nurse. Angel had tried to get in to check on him, but wherever Spike was being kept, it was deep within the Master’s inner sanctum, and Angel hadn’t been able to get close. 

   Buffy was spending her nights patrolling, killing every single vampire she saw, only letting them get away if they made it back inside the demon district even, a few times catching them in the no-man’s-land between the fence and the field. It was the only thing she could do that took her mind off it.  _ I sent him in there. I didn’t get him out. I didn’t pull him. Even after the raid on the school, I didn’t pull him. I asked him, but he’d said it would have been a waste to pull out now. I  _ asked _ him. Why?  _ Why _ did he go back? Why did I  _ send _ him back? Why couldn’t he have been weaker? Why couldn’t I have been stronger? _ Or was it the other way around? Was she really weak to need him in this role? Was he really strong to stick with it?

   But the rumor said he lived, and was recovering, and was expected back at the dig any day, and....

   And Buffy spent a lot of time sitting with her mother, because that and killing vampires were the only things that eased the pain of what she knew.

   Spike had been tortured. Not that he hadn’t endured such things before…. No. That didn’t make it better. It actually made it worse. 

   “The thing is, what the Initiative is after isn’t getting rid of the demons,” Buffy said, dragging attention back to the table. “It’s bad enough that they torture them, but there’s other things they do. It’s really disgusting, and it needs to be stopped before it gets bad.”

   “I still don’t see it,” Xander said. “So they go after the things that want to kill us. They sound just like you.”

   “They are nothing like me,” Buffy said. “I kill vampires. I don’t capture them and perform experiments.”

   “So?” Xander said. “They’re the dog catcher rather than the hunter, that’s all. Just like you, going after the rabid dogs.”

   “Okay, Xander. Say I’m the dog catcher. Say I catch the rabid dog so it doesn’t go biting people. That makes me the good guy. Then what do I do with it?” Xander looked lost. “Well, the real me, I kill it. How about this dog catcher me? What do you say I drill holes in its head and stick a bunch of laser cannons in its eyes while it yelps with the pain. Am I still the good guy now?”

   Xander blinked.

   “Well, am I? Say then I take my laser dog and set it after a bunch of lions. I mean, the lions can kill people, yeah? They weren’t trying to just then, but the laser dog doesn’t know that. Then I can cut up the lions, and add lion bits to my laser dog. Hell, even better, say I take that rabid dog and use it to give, say, _ you _ rabies, and then set you after a whole bunch of other dogs, rabid or not. Do you see the problem here yet?”

   Xander looked down. “Just... if it’s what the government chose to do... I mean... I don’t see how we can stop them. We’d need to go to Philadelphia or something.”

   Buffy blinked. “Huh?”

   “You know? Where the Prime Minister lives?”

   “You mean Washington.”

   “No, the Prime Minister’s name is Clinton.”

   Buffy shook her head. “We’re getting off topic. The point is this isn’t the government, it’s mostly Walsh. She kept a lot of what she was doing secret, and she had some really... really fucked up ideas about what was appropriate.” 

   She shuddered. She’d been pretty horrified when she realized that Walsh had a camera in Riley’s frat room. The continual time stamps were pretty telling. In itself that was creepy, until she’d realized that meant Walsh had video of Buffy and Riley having sex. And also, that she hadn’t minded her TA having sex with one of the students, which was something Buffy hadn’t realized was considered inappropriate until after Dawn started college, and she’d looked at the ethics code of the school.

   “God, you know, actually, if I was still dating Riley, getting Walsh discredited would be really easy.”

   “What do you mean?”

   “Well, he was my professor’s TA—”

   Jenny looked up. “You were dating your TA?” She sounded shocked.

   “Yeah, for over a year,” Buffy said.

   “And the college knew about it? He didn’t get fired?”

   “I don’t know about the college in general. Walsh knew all about it, though. And no, he didn’t, and she didn’t care. Well, no, first she tried to recruit me and then she tried to have me killed. I think she liked having me under his control.”

   “And  _ she _ didn’t get fired?”

   “She was killed by her own Frankenstein — uh, Frankenstein’s monster — before any of this came out,” Buffy said.

   “Well, if that’s how it played out in your world, why can’t we just do that again?” Xander asked.

   “Because the monster was worse than the man. Or woman, in this case. And I’d rather get this nipped before she creates him, since my understanding was that he was originally just one of her soldiers. Probably a cute one, like Riley.”

   “Well, if you were dating a cute army guy, more power to you,” Cordelia said loudly as Giles checked out the book he’d helped her find.

   “It didn’t work out, Cordy,” Buffy said, rather than try and explain all the details of the failings of her relationship with Riley.

   “Still. My grandfather was a four star general. I know what I’m talking about, these army guys can get really influential.”

   “Why don’t you just date one of them, then?” Xander demanded.

   “Can we...!” Buffy shouted before that blew up. “Just get back to the meeting? Thanks for visiting, Cordy.”

   Cordelia tossed her head and collected her book.

   “So maybe he’s dating another student,” Jenny said. “If he did it with you, it might be a pattern of behavior.”

   “It might be, but we’d need a student we trusted.” The breeze ruffled the papers on the desk as Cordelia tried to slam through the library doors, and only set them swinging. Buffy put her hand on the nearest stack to settle it, and Giles rejoined the group. “And it would be really hard on some poor innocent undergrad to have all this dragged through the papers. And that’s what we’d have to do, expose the scandal, get Walsh discredited with the school, and then expose the Initiative itself to the press. If it was known that the head of some top-secret government project was a college professor involved in some sex scandal, I can’t see the Initiative getting the funding it needs to expand. Secret out, funding gone, Walsh out of the picture, I bet it would just die.”

   “We could... well, I hate to say it, Buffy, but would you be willing to date him again?” Jenny asked.

   “You can’t ask Buffy to whore herself out!” Xander said, distraught. “I mean, she’d have to lie, and... maybe even sleep with him, and... no.”

   Jenny looked at him, and then glanced at Giles. “You do what you have to to perform the mission. For your team, for your family.”

   Buffy sighed. The idea did not appeal, and would tear Spike up, but she would have considered it if it might have worked. The number of lives it would save would be worth it. Fortunately (unfortunately?) it couldn’t work. “I’m not eighteen anymore, I’m not an undergraduate in the school, and he’s not my TA. The whole point is that it was unethical. Him dating the pretty high school guidance counselor in her twenties would only get him a high five from his buddies. It might piss Walsh off, since she was pretty protective of him, but it wouldn’t get the college Dean all up in his face, which is what we’d need to do.”

   The group sighed.

   “Well, it would seem this is a discussion for another day,” Giles said. “Perhaps Willow would have some ideas.”

   “I don’t know,” Xander said. “Willow seems to be throwing Scoobying to the curb in favor of getting all trancy with the Wicca.”

   “She’ll come back,” Buffy said. “What she’s doing right now? In the end, it’s going to be lots more important.”

   “Every time I look in on them these days, all they’re doing is sitting there with their eyes shut,” Xander grumbled. “Can’t see what good that is.”

***

 

   “What good are you? You’re completely useless!”

   Willow screwed her eyes shut tighter, trying to keep the power channeled through the group. She was the strongest one there, and she had learned that didn’t mean she should be the center focal point, drawing in the others’ strength and guiding it. She _ could _ do that, really easily. It was what the power told her to do. But after the tutoring sessions with Tara she’d realized the power was a lot like a demon. She was more like Angel than she was like Xander. She had a demon of power inside, always hungry to move and feed and grow, and she needed to leash it. Not kill it, or suppress it, but control it. Train it. Tame it.

   The only way to tame it, of course, was to make friends with it, and use it, but not to give in to it. It was a wild dog, but it could become a faithful friend if she didn’t let it bite her. Or anyone around her.

   Some part of the power right now was saying  _ There’s extra strength and magic floating around in this room. Grab it! Use it! It can be yours! _ And what she had to keep saying was,  _ There’s extra power here. Share it, channel it, and keep it contained. _

   Right now the power was being directed through Amy, who sat in the center of a half circle, as the rest of the magic club sat around her, letting her power feed into them while theirs fed back into her. This was an exercise in control. Every member of the magic club was going through this, one at a time. It was starting to be called The Ordeal. The consensus seemed to be if you could not withstand your ordeal... well, there was no hard and fast rule about what would happen if you didn’t. When they’d asked Tara, her response had been to say, “If anyone doesn’t manage, we’ll keep trying until you succeed,” but no one wanted to be the first to have to try more than once.

   The reason the control exercise was such an ordeal was because you created a manifestation of your own magic. And the problem was, most people’s magic took the form of something unpleasant. Not everyone had started learning magic to indulge in their love of hugs and puppies. Most learned magic out of desperation, fear, loss, pain, and a sense of inadequacy. Many had learned magic out of spite. Jonathan’s magic had taken the form of himself, powerful and perfect, so perfect it was laughable. He’d been deeply embarrassed, and almost ended the session rather than admit that desire to the group.

   But they’d all simply accepted it. Everyone wanted to be everything to everyone, in some place in their hearts. And all Jonathan had to do was control it... and he had. He’d come out of that session beaming, if a little apologetic, and he’d been a really great guy to spend time around since then.

   Alicia’s magic had taken on the form of a dog that had bitten her when she was three. Michael’s magic had taken the form of a vampire (and that had been a picnic for him to deal with). And Amy’s magic had just taken on the form of her abusive mother.

   “You’re a disgrace. How dare you sit there like a lump and just expect everything to come to you. You know what I could do, if I had your opportunities? I’d be running this school! I’d be running this town! Everyone would love me! While you, you just sit there on your youthful little ass, you lazy bitch. You’re a leech, an albatross! I should never have whelped you, I should have drowned you at birth! The only useful thing you ever did was when you gave up your life to  _ me! _ Well, you’ll do it again, you’ll see. I’ll take everything. You don’t deserve it! You don’t deserve your life, Amy, it’s mine! It’s all mine!”

   “No... it’s...  _ not! _ ” Amy shouted. She stood up suddenly and glared down at the apparition. “I’m me! Do you hear me, this is  _ my life! _ And I’m not going to let you control it!”

   “How are you going to stop me?” Amy’s mother snapped. “I’m stronger than you. You’re weak, you’re pathetic, you’re ugly, you’re worthless—”

   “And you’re  _ mine! _ ” Amy yelled. “Do you hear me? You don’t control me,  _ I control you! _ And if I tell you to sit down and shut up, you’ll do it, right? So you  _ do it! _ ”

   The magic started and writhed.

   Amy advanced on it. “You’re mine. You’re  _ mine. _ You don’t control me. I control you. I. Control.  _ You. _ ”

   The image of Amy’s mother arched her head back. She stilled, she shrank, and she finally formed a small golden ball of light. Amy reached out her hands... and the light sank back into her self.

   Everyone else in the half circle relaxed, as they let their own field down. Amy stood smiling with triumph for a moment, and then started to cry. Michael stood up and put his arm around her. “Hey, it’s okay.”

   Amy sobbed, but she was half laughing with it. “I did it,” she said. “I... I didn’t think I could....”

   “We got it, it’s okay.”

   “Sorry to make everyone see that,” Amy said apologetically to the club.

   They all universally murmured dismissal, and general acceptance. 

   “Okay, everyone. I don’t think we’ll get anyone else done today.” Tara had said that with a bit of sardonic tone, and a bunch of people laughed. Amy’s ordeal had been the hardest one yet.

   “Before we break up, don’t forget to ground, everyone.”

   Tara closed her eyes and pointed her face to the ground, while several of the others found it easier to touch the floor for a moment, letting their energies center and equalize using the earth to dispel the excess.

   “All right, blessed be!” she said as the club filed out of the classroom.

   Willow hung back. She’d been doing that a lot lately, hanging around to talk to Tara after magic club. They had some private sessions, too, mostly studying things, books and histories of other famous witches. A lot of cautionary tales. Willow had enjoyed it. A lot. It was the best studying she’d ever done. 

   As the rest of the students left, Tara seemed again to become a different person, someone smaller and quieter, someone shy and retiring who was never sure what to say. Willow found the dichotomy of that fascinating. It reminded her of herself, in a way. Willow had never been that shy, really, but she had been sort of mousy and nerdy, and it was different from powerful magical Willow who was the slayer’s right hand witch. She wondered if it was the same as what happened with Tara. Did she put on someone powerful when she started to teach class? If so, which one was the real Tara?

   “This was a really great session,” Willow said, coming up to Tara.

   “Oh, y-you-you think so?” Tara asked, looking down shyly. “I-I keep waiting for one of them to-to ju-just storm off and say this is stupid.”

   If one of them did, Willow’s bet was on Tucker, but even he was starting to warm to some of Tara’s methods. He hadn’t had his ordeal yet. Nor had Willow. “Did you ever have to do this spell?” Willow asked. “Take control of your magic?”

   “Of course,” Tara said. “Any witch who is serious should-should try it at least once. I-it should actually be part of your m-maintenance spells, you know? To keep your energies cleansed?” She shrugged.

   “How did your magic manifest?”

   Tara shook her head. “It-it... wasn’t so flashy as all this. I didn’t have a whole coven to make even an illusory manifestation. I-I just went into a trance. O-only I saw it.”

   “What form did it take?”

   “I... I....” Tara blushed and was looking at the ground.

   “Oh, is that too personal? I shouldn’t have asked.”

   “No, no, I’m... I’m having everyone else show off theirs. I-I thought... I thought i-i-it might be good... for everyone to see th-that-that no one is perfect inside, that... that we all have our personal demons. Since th-there are so many demons outside these days.”

   “Better to get it all out in the open,” Willow agreed.

   “It... it was my mother,” Tara said. “Like Amy, only... only....”

   “Not like Amy’s mom?”

   Tara shook her head.

   “My mother died w-when I was s-seventeen,” Tara said. “It... it was nice to see her. Even... if only symbolically... and... and in a trance.”

   Willow grinned brightly at her, and Tara blushed. “You should do it again!” Willow said. “With the group, so you can see her for real! Or, you know, with your two eyes instead of just your third one.” She reached out and gently touched Tara’s forehead, where the third eye was imagined to exist.

   Tara leaned in to the touch, and then leaned back. “N-no, I couldn’t take over the time of the club like that. This time is for all of you.”

   “Why can’t it be for you, too?” Willow asked.

   Tara shook her head, shy. “I don’t want to put everyone through that. I’m afraid I’d cry.” She cringed. “I mean, I’d love to, but... I don’t want to j-just make everyone feel sorry for me.”

   “I get that,” Willow said, stepping away, and then an idea struck her. “But, hey, what if just we did it, if you want. Just you and me.”

   “I-it would take the whole coven,” Tara said. “To make a physical manifestation? Even in illusion? No. I-I don’t have that kind of power.”

   “But I do,” Willow said. “I think.”

   Tara stared up at her. Her eyes looked so deep... so pure....

   “I do, though,” Willow said. “I really think I do. And I – I wanna share it. With you.” She smiled. “And I’d like to see your mother.”

   Tara slowly frowned at Willow. “What form do you think  _ your _ magic will take?” she asked. “When it’s your turn?”

   Willow shook her head. “I don’t know.” She chuckled. “I’m a little afraid to find out.”

   “How come?”

   Willow turned and sat down atop the teacher’s desk. “I don’t know,” she said, feeling thoughtful. “Some part of me is afraid I’ll be just like Jonathan, you know? That I hate what I am so much that I’ll just want to be something so ridiculous. Sometimes I’m afraid it’ll be like Amy, and take the shape of my greatest fear. Sometimes....” She stopped and looked down. “Sometimes I’m afraid it’ll be Cordelia.”

   Tara had only met Cordelia a few times. “Why her?”

   “Because she’s everything I hated, but also everything I wanted to be,” Willow said. “Like, she was rude and mean and she didn’t care about grades... but she was also rich and popular and really pretty. Everything I’m not.”

   “I think you’re pretty,” Tara said quietly, then blushed even more deeply, and turned her face to the window.

   Willow found she was blushing too. She wanted to ask,  _ Really? _ But she kept on. “And she and Xander hated each other, and then suddenly they were making with the smoochies... and it hurt, you know? Because I really loved Xander, and I thought... I thought one day that he might love me.”

   “Loved?” Tara asked. “Y-you don’t... d-d-d-don’t still love him?”

   Willow frowned. “I don’t know. I mean, I know I love him, he’s my best friend, but…. Well. It’s different. Cordy broke up with him because we were kissing, and I thought I’d feel... triumphant or something, but instead all I felt was bad. And I haven’t wanted to kiss him since.” She looked up. “Does that make me bad? That I’d change my mind about something like that? I’ve been planning my wedding with Xander since I was seven years old.”

   Tara’s smile slipped out from behind her hair. “What did you like about him when he was seven?”

   “Well, he was fun, and he was nice, and he’d share his pop-rocks,” Willow said. “We were best friends ever since we were five. I... I used to think that meant we were meant to be together, but....” She trailed off.

   “Maybe it does,” Tara said. “Just m-maybe not... not the way you thought.”

   “A lot of things aren’t the way I thought,” Willow said. “I thought magic was something I had to grow and accumulate, you know? Like an apple tree or something? Make it bigger, get more apples? But now it feels more like it’s something I need to... train. Like a wild horse or something.”

   “Exactly!” Tara said. “Yes, it’s a living thing, it doesn’t just grow, it moves, it breathes, it acts! And if you train it, it can do the most amazing things.” She sat down beside Willow on the desk.

   “Win races?”

   “Jump fences.”

   “Dressage?”

   “Rodeo!”

   Willow looked down. Tara’s hand was slightly touching hers on the desk. It was smooth and warm and her fingers snaked over and then they were hugging — just the fingers. Ten little digits all twisted up haphazardly together, as if they had done it all themselves.

   Willow looked up, and Tara’s face was close to hers, and it seemed so natural to lean forward and —

   The kiss was like a light switch had turned on, and suddenly the world had changed. It had gone from a black and barren desert to a wild wonderland of color. The two pulled apart, staring at each other, and then fell right back into kisses. Kisses that made all the magic look tame.

 


	21. Chapter 21

 

   Spike dragged the closest minion out from under the shale and shook him. “You stupid, sodding, twat!” He threw the minion behind him and dragged out another whose hand he could see just protruding from the cave in. Oh. It was just the arm. Well, whatever. He threw that behind him, too. He whirled on Brian, who had scarpered with the plans before that part of the tunnel had collapsed. The vampire had dirt on his face and a bruise on one eye, but otherwise he was unharmed. “What the bloody hell happened?”

   “The-the rain,” Brain said. “It was the rain. It weakened the dig ceiling and the shoring failed. When you were gone the boys didn’t want to work as hard, and—”

   “Gah!” Spike wanted to kill Brian. He wanted to shout at the boy,  _ So why didn’t you  _ make _ them? _ But Brian wasn’t a Big Bad, he knew he wasn’t, and he had a lot more minions under him than Spike had set him for the Gem of Amara. It had only been the four of them and Harmony when he’d gone after the Gem. This was over a dozen workers, all of them ostensibly working for the Master, and by the time they got down to Brian in the hierarchy, he barely registered as superior. Of  _ course _ the sod couldn’t make them work as hard as Spike could. That wasn’t his fault. It still made Spike want to crack heads.

   He’d lost nearly a week to the god damned raid and the subsequent torture and recovery. Now he was going to lose he had no idea how much time to this cave in. He buried his head in his hands. God, he needed to go see Buffy. He hadn’t had a chance after the torture, and she was probably worried about him. Maybe he could go tonight? Tell the boys he wanted to go hunting for a proper kill and scarper back to Sunnydale for a cuddle. He wasn’t hungry, not for blood anyway. He’d already eaten far too much. His stomach clenched with hunger, but he’d still eaten far too much.

   They’d been making him kill. He hated doing it, it twisted him up, but the Master had been very insistent. “You’ve been injured, Spike!”  _ (And whose fault was that, you sodding sadist?) _ “You need a good kill!”  _ (Too right I do, and I’m looking at a ripe candidate for it right here, bastard!) _ “I can’t send you back to work until I’m certain you’ve been properly fed, both in body and spirit!”  _ (Then just let me go to Buffy, already. Let me go. I want to go home....) _ Spike had managed to narrow his choices down to the weakest, the ones who probably weren’t going to last the week as it was. He’d passed this off as “Liking to taste their pain.”

   The problem was, that wasn’t entirely a lie.

   He’d see some hollowed eyed victim staring up at him from the pens, someone so bruised and used and beaten that they were longing for death, and he’d catch them up in his arms and just hold them for a long moment. He didn’t dare whisper how sorry he was. He would just hold them tenderly and take them as gently as he could. They all tasted terrible. They were the weakest and the sickest, their bodies breaking down, full of toxins from failing organs, but their pain... or the cessation of their pain... was the sweetest thing he could think of. As it ended in his arms he couldn’t help but groan, the rush of power sliding through him, a demon of death, kissing their lives away. He was almost envious.

   How something could feel so good and so bad at the same bloody time….

   He’d killed three like this. Their faces were etched in his memory. When he had no soul, when he’d gone diving into destruction and death before, he’d barely looked at his victims. They’d just been party favors, happy meals, and their drained corpses were just empty bottles, tossed aside like so much trash. Now... now he just wished he could have asked for their names. But the ones he had selected were so far gone they no longer had names, at least none they could find.

   But he couldn’t be seen to cry over them. As much as he found himself loving them, even as they died....

_    Ugh, no. No, no, don’t think on it, Spike. Get out of here, just for a night, go to Buffy, breathe her in... just get away from all this for a few hours. _

   He sagged a bit and put his hand on Brian’s shoulder. “All right, mate,” he said through his fangs. His deceptive calm made Brian shudder, and rightly so. Spike had never felt more dangerous. “What do we do now?”

   “Uh... well... um... if... if I get the boys to, uh... well... the remaining boys.... to dig out the collapse... uh... we should....”

   “Can we still... do... the dig?” Spike said, trembling with rage.

   “Yes, boss,” Brian said quickly. “We shouldn’t lose more than a week with this.”

   Spike nearly dusted the sod.

   “Fine,” he said with poisoned grin. “You’d best get on that then, hadn’t you?”

   “Yes, boss.” He shoved the plans aside and started digging out some of the mud and stone.

   “When you dig out any of the boys, give them a bottle of blood and set them working again!” Spike snapped. “They’ll have had a nice, long rest under the earth, they’ll be fresh to dig immediately.”

   Brian swallowed. “Yes, boss.”

   Spike took a deep breath and made himself leave his boys to it. He climbed back up through the tunnel and into the winery proper. Most of the boys had been dragged down to help with the cave in, but three of them were still there by the wine vats, playing cards. Spike glared at them without saying a word.

   All three of them opened their eyes wide at the sight of him, gulped, and then hastily put down their cards. Two of them stood up to help the dig. One of them lay down, as if properly getting in his rest. Spike cleared his throat. He stood up, and headed down with the others to dig.

   Spike relaxed. That was them out of the way then.

   “Oh, blondie bear!”

   Bloody hell. “Harm, get the hell away from me.”

   “Oh, come on. You’ve been digging and digging in that nasty tunnel for days.”

   “Two days,” Spike snapped. Only two days. Only two more days of work after that debacle of a fake raid, and now they were set back at least a week!

   “Well, your muscles are probably tense,” Harmony said. She dragged him by the sleeve up the stairs to the winery office, which Spike had set up as his own private lair. He had stopped feeling comfortable in basements. He’d had the windows painted white, to diffuse the sunlight, and put curtains over them in case they broke. There was a bolt hole, of course — Spike never had a lair without at least a bolt hole, if not an escape route — but for the most part it was as human as he could get it.

   He had left it military and spartan, but in the last two days Harmony had taken it upon herself to spruce the place up. Gone was the military camp bed, and instead a broad double bed with a pink satin comforter. Fluffy pillows graced the head of the bed, with a crowning glory of a big red heart shaped cushion with — god, he hoped she didn’t think this represented her, because he’d heard her try to sing — a couple of musical notes emblazoned on it. A unicorn shaped desk lamp had been put on an empty barrel used for a bedside table. She’d even put up a couple of unicorn posters.

   Spike sighed. The trouble was, he actually sort of liked Harmony. Always had. He liked playfulness and fantasy and childlike enthusiasm. He was even fond of occasional ditziness. Both Buffy and Drusilla could have their ditzy moments. Harmony, however, was about five steps past what he actually liked, and went into annoying territory. Syrup was sweet, but you don’t want to drink a whole bottle of it like it was beer.

   Why the hell she had followed him to the dig after the Master gave him leave to return he had no idea. She had been given the role of his nurse. Well enough. Someone had to bring him blood and clean the effluvia off his tortured body. He hadn’t been capable of it. But what the hell was she still doing here? And why did she seem to think that tending him gave her the right to sleep in the same bed? They hadn’t actually been sleeping together, since he’d been down at the dig as often as possible the last two days, and he’d barely slept in that time, but technically this was his bedroom, and she had clearly marked it as her own.

   “Let me rub your shoulders, blondie bear,” Harmony said. She took off his coat and set about rubbing at his flesh, and... yeah, okay, he was tense. Still doing the nursing job, then. He’d give her a few more days until he was fully recovered and then shunt her on back to the demon district where she belonged.

   Except that... wasn’t what her hands were saying as they left his shoulders and traveled down his back, along his waist, tickling at the back of his trousers to fondle his — “Harm,” he said, pushing her hand away. “Enough of that.”

   Harmony sighed, the tsking, annoyed sigh he was so used to with her. “Come _ on,  _ Spike! You’ve got to be feeling strong enough by now!”

   “What are you...!” he whirled on her but then trailed off. She’d been wearing some kind of robe or dress or something when she’d dragged him up here, but while his back had been turned she’d shed that. She was now wearing a half see-through little negligee thing, that revealed lots more than it concealed, and the thought of it made his guts clench. “Now wait a minute,” he said. “We’re not doing that.”

   Harmony looked disappointed. “But Spike! I’ve been doing everything right. I don’t know what else to  _ do! _ ”

   Spike reached down and grabbed her robe, sliding it over her shoulders. “You just put that back on, that’s all,” he said. “I’m not into it. End of story.”

  “But if you don’t fuck me soon, I’m gonna have to tell the Master you won’t!” She looked down. “I didn’t want to do that.”

  “Not really my problem, pet.”

   Harmony sighed again, rolling her eyes. “Right. I’ll bet you really  _ do _ want someone more like that Droodzilla.” She kicked sullenly at the edge of the bed. “Dammit. And here I’d really hoped it could be me.”

   Now Spike was confused. “What are you on about?”

   “The Master picked me out of all the new fledges ‘cause I’d volunteered,” she said. “He was looking for someone that would remind you of your old consort, but I remembered you, when he said the name Spike, and I remembered I’d thought you were cute, so I volunteered.”

   “Volunteered for _ what? _ ”

   “To be your girlfriend,” Harmony said.

   Spike rolled his eyes. “Harm—”

   “Oh, I know, you all use the word  _ consort _ or whatever. Stupid sounding word. Like, you sort out your cons or something? I don’t know. Anyway, I just thought I could do it, that’s all.” She smiled up at him, coquettish and shy, and actually it was her cutest look, he’d always thought so, and no, nope, absolutely not, he wasn’t playing this. “Don’t you like me?” she asked.

   “Not a question of that,” he snapped. “I have other things on my mind. I have this dig to sort. Not hankering for a bit of the other.”

   Harmony sank down in the chair. “Damn. It’s not fair. Just ‘cause I don’t look like this Dorcas bitch.”

   “Not really the point, Harm. Not looking for a shag.” God, he had to get out of here. He flung himself onto the bed and glared at the ceiling. Maybe a little sleep? So he’d be fresh when he went to see Buffy... yeah. That’d be good.

   Harmony was really disappointed. She was pouty and broody as she sat glum in the chair. “Well, I hope the next one satisfies you!” she muttered.

   That stopped him. He turned to look at her. “What do you mean?”

   “I _ mean, _ the Master said if I don’t do it, he’d have to go and turn someone else! Or get someone else turned, anyway. I don’t think he planned to do it himself. But he said he’d get someone else for you. Some brunette who was more goth-chick or something.”

   Spike sat up. “Turn someone else?”

   “Well, yeah. He says you’re lonely, and he could taste the lie when you said you weren’t, so you need some kind of consort, or you’d do something stupid, but no one can be Drusilla, so he’d see to it there was some kind of little chicky-poo or something — or maybe that’s what Trick called me. Anyway, he said if I don’t do it for you he’ll turn someone else, and if  _ she  _ doesn’t do it for you he’ll do it again, until you finally settle on one you’ll keep.” She rolled her eyes. “Just like you, I’m sure. Leave a string of broken hearts behind you. Don’t you understand that a girl means it when she’s, like, fawning all over you and stuff?” She sighed, all sulky. “Being a vampire sucks. I was really happy when I thought I’d get to be yours. The other newborns thought I was lucky.”

   “What’s wrong with them?” Spike snapped. “Why couldn’t he just keep sending me them, why would he need to turn a new one?”

   “Uh....” Harmony looked distraught at the panic he could not he conceal in his voice. “I... I think he said something about... about devotion before the turning? Like... if you whisper while the vic’s dying that she’s yours, she’ll be more...  _ yours _ or something? I didn’t really get it. He said I already had it, since I... um....”

   “Since what!” Spike snarled leaping out of the bed.

   “Um... because I kinda found you cute when I was still human?” she said, sounding a little ashamed of that.

   Spike sagged. Oh, bloody hell, no. No, no, no, no.... Maybe he’d misunderstood something? Maybe... maybe it didn’t have to be...?

   “So... if I don’t take you into my bed, some innocent girl dies, yeah? Some other poor bitch gets dragged down into this hell, that’s what you’re saying?”

   “Yeah, I know, I  _ told  _ them you’d be more likely to throw me over if you knew that,” Harmony said. “But then I told them I already knew how sex worked, so if you even gave me half a chance I could—”

   “Shut up,” Spike said. He had wanted it to come out a snarl of anger, but it had just fallen like lead weights onto carpet. “Just shut up, just shut....”

   He hoped she’d stay quiet. He wasn’t sure he could do it if she didn’t. He grabbed her by the hair and put her on her stomach on the bed, and disrobed enough to get the deed done.  _ He’ll turn another, and another, and another, all with the minion order to be mine. How many would it take before I crumbled anyway? How many girls lives do I need on this soul? _

   But how could he carry  _ this? _

   But how could he not? Buffy would not think kindly on him for letting girls die just because he was too fastidious to sully himself. So he was whoring himself out for this. He could do this. But not if she prattled on. It was Harm, (it just had to be Harm, didn’t it? Stupid patterns of no-there’s-no-destiny-that’s-bollocks-that-is, bullshit!) he could shag Harm, he’d done it before, just keep her mouth shut and think... think about Buffy, yeah? Because that’s all she’d ever been, Harmony, she was Not-Buffy, but she was almost close enough to Buffy to taste similar, in a superficial oh-god-what-the-hell-am-I-doing way.

   Buffy wasn’t going to forgive him for this one. And if she did, she shouldn’t. It wasn’t right, he was cheating on her, god, he hated himself for that, almost more than for the killing.... The kills... the raid... the fight... the blood... now shagging this stupid bint on a satin covered bed with the sodding unicorns glaring at him under their god damn fucking...!

   It was done. He’d gotten the deed done already. He’d sort of wanted it to be rough and angry, but he had been too snowed under with despair to even get that kind of emotion into it. He was too miserable to even be angry at Harmony, when it wasn’t even her fault. He looked over at her, and that one glimpse (the only glimpse he’d ever had) of her innocent and human and still unmistakably Harmony which he knew now was going to linger in his mind forever.

   At least it was Harmony, and not some crying little human chit who didn’t want him at all. At least she’d volunteered. That made it better, right? Right? That made it... made it....

   He curled up on his side on the bed with his face buried in the red heart pillow, and couldn’t keep the tears off. Buffy…  _ Buffy _ …. How could he go to Buffy  _ now? _ After  _ this? _ He couldn’t. Maybe… maybe not  _ ever…. _

   Harmony turned, looking lost, sort of helpless, and stared at him. He turned his face deeper into the pillow so he couldn’t see her, and couldn’t even shout at her to sod off.

   For a long moment the new fledge stared at her assigned consort, completely unsure what to do. She’d heard about that soul thing... what did that have to do with sex? The sex had been crap, too, she’d had a better lay from half-drunk football players under the bleachers, she had thought Spike had experience in that area, but... she couldn’t even be resentful of it now that he was like this. She couldn’t understand it... but after a little bit she reached out to pet his smooth blond hair.

   Spike tensed at her touch, but after a bit he relaxed. He had to relax, he couldn’t keep his muscles tense all the time, it was impossible. He hated himself, hated where he was, hated what he’d just been forced to do, hated her, hated her very touch.

   He would have been lying if he’d said he wasn’t taking some comfort from it.

 


	22. Chapter 22

  
  


   Cordelia held up a paper bag at the door. “I brought lunch!”

   Angel blinked at her, still a little sleepy. He’d been woken by her knocking, and hastily slipped on a shirt over his pajama bottoms. It was high noon. “Cordy...? What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be at school?”

   “I skipped,” Cordelia said. “Thought I’d come check on you. I brought some O positive. That’s your favorite, right?”

   Angel took a brief step back. “How... did you know...?”

   “Oh, Faith said something one night. Speaking of which, I haven’t seen you out in a while.”

   “Oh, I... I haven’t felt much like socializing,” Angel said.

   Cordelia raised her eyebrows in the entry hall, which kept the sun off the doorway. “Can I... come in? Peace offering and everything?” She waved her paper bag about.

   “I didn’t know we were warring,” Angel said, but he stepped away from the door.

   “Well, we’re not, it’s just I... haven’t seen you, and....” She stopped. “Look, everyone else is on Xander’s side, even though he’s a lying, cheating, bastard loser, and, well... you and I used to be friends, right?”

   “Yeah,” Angel said. “I guess.”

   “Good.” Cordelia strode past him and into the kitchen as if she owned the place, even though she’d only been there twice, once bringing home a deeply inebriated Faith, and once when a bunch of vampires had stashed themselves outside her house, and she’d felt it safer to be somewhere else that night, until he and Faith had gotten rid of them. That had been a great night, though. They’d come back to tell Cordy her house was clear, but she still hadn’t wanted to leave until dawn (not an unusual reaction in Sunnydale these days.) Faith had gone to bed early with a rib injury, and Angel and Cordelia had sat chatting and watching hockey together before she’d fallen asleep on the couch. He remembered thinking how sweet she looked as he’d tucked a blanket over her. The evening had been fun. Cordy actually  _ liked  _ hockey, which shocked him. It didn’t match what he thought of as Cordelia. Actually, a lot of Cordelia didn’t match what he thought of as Cordelia. The girl had layers.

   In fact Cordelia was the only person who had ever gotten him out to dance, before all the dance clubs and coffee shops and other replacements for the Bronze stopped being open at all in the evenings. She’d just taken his hands a few times and dragged him out along with her, and something about how sure she was, or how determined, or just her sweetness had made his feet move until she was in his arms. It was slow dancing, because he knew he looked like an idiot when he tried anything else. Just Cordelia warm in his arms, moving her feet slowly, laughing gently at him when he fumbled a step. Not one of those sexy grinding dance-like things that Faith liked to pull. 

   Now that he thought about it, before the town had gotten quite so dangerous, before Kendra had died and Faith had come into the picture, Angel and Cordelia had had quite a lot of quiet... well, no, they weren’t dates. They hadn’t been called  _ dates. _ But she wasn’t the type to stay home, so she was out a lot. And whenever sketching portraits of Buffy hadn’t been enough and the loneliness got on top of him and he went out to at least be around people, there she’d be. And they’d sit, and share a drink, and talk....

   He’d sort of missed those talks.

   She had pulled down a coffee mug and poured in most of the blood from the donation bag. That was a lot of human blood for this time of day.... He was usually pretty careful about how much human blood he would take, and when, but he couldn’t scorn a gift like that. “How long to make it 98.6?” Cordy asked as she stared at the microwave.

   “Here, it’s actually better if you keep it on defrost. Keeps it from getting scorched or clotting up,” Angel said. He set the microwave to the right temperature, and Cordelia seized the rest of the coffee Jenny had left behind when she’d gotten ready for school that morning. Angel took up the rest of the donor packet and moved to put it in the fridge. And stopped. This was fresh. Usually the date stamp on Willy’s donor blood special was expired, or nearly expired, as he only had a line on the waste blood from the hospital. Come to think of it, Angel couldn’t envision Cordy at Willy’s. She probably wouldn’t survive it even in broad daylight. Willy’s was pretty hard core these days. “Where did you get this?”

   “From the hospital,” Cordy said. “Daddy’s name got me to the right person, and money did the rest. You didn’t tell me that stuff was so expensive.”

   “Well, it’s... it’s life,” he said quietly before putting it in the fridge. Couldn’t waste that stuff. “You know, I’m usually on animal blood....”

   “I know, Faith said you tried to pretend that’s all you drink. It’s okay, I get it. Blood is blood, and if this stuff tastes better, why not go for the finer things in life? It’s not as if you’re killing anyone, right?”

   Angel wanted to point out that there were human beings who might need that blood, but Cordy looked quietly upset beneath her casual attitude, and she had meant the gesture kindly, and he didn’t want to get into the metaphorical ethics of the situation, and besides... the scent of it wafting from the microwave was making his mouth water. “Thanks,” he said.

   “No prob,” Cordy said. When the microwave dinged she seized the blood out and replaced it with her coffee, casually pressing the precious mortal fluid into Angel’s hands as if it was some reheated tea.

   She was really this okay with it all?

   “Well, drink up!” Cordy said as she leaned against the counter waiting for her coffee.

   Angel took a small sip. God, this was good stuff! Female, premenopausal, O positive, and possibly a vegan. He had to force himself not to fall into fangs, even though he really  _ really _ wanted to. He thought that might be a bit much for Cordy, particularly at this time of day.

   He suppressed the almost erotic sounds he wanted to make at the taste and instead made himself lower the mug. “What’s up, Cordy?” he asked. “What’s with the blood summit?”

   “It’s not a summit!” Cordy said with a laugh, and then jumped when her coffee dinged. She grabbed it out of the microwave and fled to the couch near the fireplace, forgetting the milk and sugar.

   Angel remembered that was how she liked it. He collected both and brought them over to her, along with a spoon, setting them all down on the coffee table.

   “Oh, thanks,” she said as he sat down near her. She thoughtfully doctored her coffee.

   Angel felt awkward. “Cordy, is there some reason you came over today?”

   “Well. You heard about Xander?” 

   “Yeah,” Angel said. “I heard... something.” It had seemed somewhat silly to him, such a falling out among friends that had been this close over one simple kiss in a stressful situation, but Cordy was hurting. Really hurting. The pain of the kiss had gotten mixed up in the pain of the raid, and the pain of losing her friend, and he was not going to tell her that she shouldn’t feel hurt.

   “It’s just... I really, really thought he was the one, you know?” 

   “Yeah. I get that.”

   He took another swallow of his blood. Huh... the cup was almost half empty already... it was really good stuff, he had hardly noticed.... Oh well. Pay attention to  _ this _ sip. He did, holding the bouquet of it on his tongue. Really, with the blood in his mouth and Cordelia’s voice and her heartbeat and her companionship, this was right up there with... no. Don’t. No one is dying here today.

_ How many times in a day do you actually want to kill? _

   Buffy’s words echoed again in his head, as they’d been echoing for days now, and he cringed with disgust of himself. He made himself drag his attention back to Cordelia, who had been talking the whole time. He wished he could say she had just been chattering and he hadn’t missed anything, but the truth of her earnestness was clear on her face. Whatever she had been talking about was very, very important to her.

   “It’s just that I don’t know, you know?” she finished.

   “Yeah....” Angel swallowed down the fragrant blood taste and forced himself to put the mug down. “Cordy, why aren’t you talking to your friends about this?”

   And to Angel’s absolute horror, Cordelia started to cry.

   “What... what did...?”  He was mortified. “What...? Um... look. Can I...? Uh....” Why didn’t he still carry handkerchiefs! He expected to find one in his waistcoat pocket, but he wasn’t wearing a waistcoat, and he didn’t have a pocket, and handkerchiefs were not fashion accessories anymore and....

   He darted forward and dabbed at Cordelia’s tears with his shirt sleeve. “Hey, look. I’m sorry. Did I say something...?”

   “I’m sorry....” Cordelia whimpered. “I’m really, really sorry, I just... I didn’t....” She sobbed, trying to force it back, and Angel realized what he’d done.

   Cordelia didn’t  _ have _ any friends anymore. Most of the student body had been depleted, either through death or leaving town. The graduating class was smaller, and the raid at the school had been quite literally murder on the pep squad. Ten students had met their fate at that raid, four of them had been cheerleaders, one of them had been Cordelia’s best friend, ripped out to her death right under Cordy’s nose. Cordelia’s other friends had been Xander’s friends first, and from what Angel guessed, either she had cut them off, or they were simply standing by Xander regardless of what he did, which meant they weren’t really her friends anymore, either.

   “No,  _ I’m _ sorry,” Angel said. “I know how it feels to feel you’re all alone.”

   “Really?”

   “I’m a vampire with a soul, Cordy,” he said. “How many of my kind do you think there are?”

   “At last count... I heard of one other.”

   “And he’s from a different universe,” Angel said. “Which means home grown...?”

   “I guess just you,” Cordy said.

   Angel carefully daubed more tears away, and Cordelia softened under his touch. That was nice, her warmth and her softness. The taste of the blood was still lingering on his tongue.

   Cordy reached for her coffee, and Angel reached for the blood, because he didn’t want to let it get cold, that would be a travesty. Huh... had he really drunk that much already? He swallowed down the last of it, and stopped himself from dipping his fingers in and licking them off, because as okay as Cordelia seemed to be with him drinking human blood in front of her (and god, he never even did that in front of Faith! He was somewhat ashamed of it, but  _ she’d  _ actually brought it, Cordy, and told him to drink up, and  _ damn, _ but that spoke of a fine, accepting, generous woman under that shallow exterior) he didn’t want to seem like some kind of animal.

   But god, she was awfully pretty. He smiled at her and leaned back on the couch, admiring the way her hair fell over her shoulders. He really liked it when women embraced their femininity, like Cordy always did, with her clothing and her hair styles, and... he sighed, just enjoying the moment. He didn’t let himself do that often.

   “You thought you and Buffy were fated, like, forever, right?” Cordy asked, her voice very soft and pained.

   “Yeah,” Angel said.

   “When she died... I mean, I know it was  _ death,  _ and it’s not the same, but... I mean, the shape of destiny is what I’m talking about, right? What is the shape of my destiny? I really, really thought it was for me and Xander to be together. I mean, god, I had gone _ celibate _ for him!”

   “What do you mean?”

   “He’s still a virgin, and he’s seventeen. I was waiting for his eighteenth birthday, I was gonna get a hotel room and rose petals and everything, dammit. I had plans! And now that’s all shot.  _ All  _ the plans are shot, not just the ones for finally getting laid again. All the plans I had for my life were with him in them. And now I’m... I’m just....”

   “Lost.”

   Angel had felt that way, when Darla had left him. All of his plans had included Darla, being with her, fighting with her, tracking her down and punishing her if they were in one of their off periods, running away from her and waiting for her to find him.... Once it became clear there could be no Darla in his future, he’d been completely at sea. Only that filthy guilty soul to cling to....

   “Did you feel that way when Buffy died?” she asked. “Lost?”

   “No,” Angel said. “With Buffy, I always felt that was still... still sort of where I was. Sort of stuck. Like the Master had been. In a way, I never left that moment when I found her body. I was still... sort of holding her. Until recently.”

   “And then recently?”

   “You already know.”

   “The other Buffy. The older Buffy.”

   “Yeah,” Angel said. He stared into nothing and tried to make sense of it. “Destiny played out... and it played out without her. That’s all.” He looked down ruefully. “Probably for the best.”

   “Do you miss it?” Cordelia asked. “That destiny you thought you had? Because it’s not like I even miss Xander that much—” Angel was terrible at human interrelations, and even  _ he _ could hear the lie in that one “—it’s just that I’m missing that life I had planned, you know? He’s not in it any more, and so in a way it’s like  _ I’m _ not there anymore. It’s like I’m suddenly living the wrong life, you know? Which... sort of makes me the wrong... person....”

   “You’re not the wrong person, Cordy.” She was getting teary eyed again. He put his arm around her, and she curled up on the couch against him, and he stroked her hair. “You’re just a girl. A very young girl, and so things didn’t work out this one time with this one guy. That doesn’t make you the wrong person.”

   “But... it’s... it’s like I’ve lost everything,” she said. “And... and it’s... not....” She gulped. “Why did it all have to go wrong?” she begged, looking up at him with her tear streaked face.

   “Because that’s life....” Angel whispered into it.

   He wasn’t sure how it had happened. He thought maybe she’d lifted her head a little too high... or maybe he’d leaned down too low... or maybe there was something else at play... but without really meaning to he was drawing in her warm, living breath, and then his lips were gently touching hers, and then, then they were kissing in earnest, and oh, yes, she was warm, she was alive, she was young, she was sweet, and she didn’t care that he had been drinking human blood not ten minutes before. They were kissing more deeply now, breath coming hard, and she was so small and perfect within his arms, and if he pulled her a little closer like that, yeah, just like that, she was this tiny little thing he could just completely envelop, and then her body was all along with his, and he could, god, maybe, maybe he could....

   Oh, god, no!

   He pulled away, flustered. He’d forgotten. How the hell had he  _ forgotten? _ Half asleep, with near a pint of human blood rushing through his senses, with the scent of Cordelia’s tears addling his mind, and the idea of destiny deferred...!

   “No, no, no, Cordy, I really can’t.”

   “What?”

   Cordelia looked flushed, panting with desire he could smell.

   “I’m sorry, Cordy. You’re really sweet, and you’re very beautiful, but I think maybe you should leave now.”

   Cordy blinked at him. “You don’t want me, either, do you?” she said. “I’m not what you want. I’m that  _ other girl, _ whoever she is. I’m not Willow, I’m not Buffy, I’m not the right damn beauty queen!”

   “Cordelia.”

   “What is it?” She stood up, looking down at herself. “What am I doing wrong? I have the clothes, I have the look, I’ve been properly starving myself for half a decade already so I have this wafer thin body everyone wants these days, what the hell am I doing wrong? Is it the hair? The makeup? What?”

   “Cordy... it’s nothing to do with any of that.”

   “No. No, of course it isn’t. Because if it was, I could fix that,” she said. “It’s not the clothes, it’s me. There’s something wrong with  _ me! _ ” She didn’t sound hurt. She sounded angry. “I’m doing something wrong, somewhere. I’m screwing it up. Its inside, it’s internal. There’s something fundamentally screwed up and undesirable about  _ Cordelia. _ ”

   “Cordelia, that’s... really ridiculous.”

   “It is,” Cordy said, advancing on him. “It really, really is. Because you know what? I’m the fucking queen! And I’m sick of feeling like I’m not! I’m gonna prove it, dammit. And there’s nothing you can say to stop me!”

   “Um... I... I didn’t....”

   Cordy was marching across the room, grabbed up her purse, tossed back her hair. “You just watch Mr.  _ Oh, I’m all sexy and cuddly, but I just can’t! _ Way to lead a girl on!”

   Angel sort of felt this was unfair, but she didn’t give him a chance to even say that.

   “Well, I’ll show you. I’ll show all of you. Especially Xander Freaking Harris!”

   She stalked over to the front door and stormed out.

   Angel was left feeling a little drunk, a little high, and very confused. “What just happened here?”

   There was no answer forthcoming.

 

***

    Cordelia slammed on the accelerator, squealing her precious blessed car through the noontime streets, her tears dead on her cheeks. She swerved into the student parking lot and promptly parked over the line, pissing off another student who had pulled up to try and park in the second space. They honked, and Cordelia pointedly ignored them, retouching her makeup in the mirror. Within a few moments there was no trace of the tears that had plagued her ten minutes ago.

   She checked her hair, made sure of her teeth, and brushed off her shirt. There. She was perfect. She slipped her purse over her shoulder, locked her car door, and strode like the fucking queen she was into the school, making a beeline, and if any other students tried to slow her down, they were going to be knocked over and stepped on with her stiletto shoes. Well, okay, they weren’t stiletto, but she walked like they were, like they were actual blades made to slice anyone she wanted to walk all over. Like Xander Freaking Harris.

   Everyone scampered as she sailed forward, like she was Moses parting the freaking Red Sea or something. Buffy could be dangerous? And Kendra, and Faith? Well, they hadn’t seen nothing yet. Cordelia Chase was on the move, and everyone had better get the fuck out of the way.

   She slammed open the door of Ms. Summers’ guidance office, to find Buffy hastily closing out a stupid looking game on her office computer. “Cordelia!” she said with a slightly flustered smile. “How can I help you?”

   “You said you needed a student to fuck a cute army guy? I’m in.”


	23. Chapter 23

 

 

 

   The Master looked up from the ground where Spike had put him. He looked... shocked was what it was. Spike wondered if this was the only time anyone had dared strike him since Angelus. If that had even happened. Angelus’s boasting about beating the Master up at their introduction and waltzing off with a swooning Darla had always struck him as lies. It was more likely that the Master had slapped Angel around a little, and Darla had carried off the bruised puppy, feeling sorry for her sexy little fledge.

   Since Buffy hadn’t taken the Master out in this universe, Spike very much doubted anyone had dared strike the sod in centuries. He hadn’t been able to stop himself, though. The Master had just asked him to _thank him._

   “For getting your nasty little claws into my bed?” Spike barked down at him. “For making judgements on my mistakes, without looking twice at your own? Listen up, Gramps, you’re not all that, and you already know it, or you wouldn’t be trying to micro-manage my personal life!”

   The Master’s minions were closing around Spike, weapons at the ready, and Spike was convinced he was about to have to bust his way out of the compound in a flurry of fists and fangs, or go out in a blaze of glory trying, but the Master held up one hand to his followers. They paused, still ready to dust Spike, but hanging on the Master's every move.

   “Is that what the soul does for you, Spike?” the Master asked from the ground. “Give you a death wish?”

   Spike glared at him. “If you mean not being afraid of the dust,” he said, “I had that long before the soul, Gramps.”

   The Master picked himself up and brushed off his black gown. “That was an impressive display of brutality. Quite the fighting cockerel you turned out to be. I don’t think one of my people has struck me in... goodness, I can’t even remember!” he said with a bit of a laugh in Colin’s direction.

   The Anointed One looked down from his perch, blood staining his innocent seeming lips, the remains of — something — in his hands. Spike didn’t want to look too hard. “Your lieutenant is insolent,” he said evenly.

   The word was so strange coming out of the mouth of the little boy.

   “It appears to be one of the reasons he’s been so successful,” the Master mused. “Am I correct in thinking you also fought your soul to be what you are today?”

   “The devil’s own truth, that,” Spike said ruefully.

   “But why take your ire out on me, boy?” the Master said. “I only told you to show your gratitude to your betters.”

   “I’m not grateful, I’m brassed off! I didn’t want the bint, and now I have to deal with her!”

   “She reports you’ve been bedding her regularly since you grew strong enough. I thought that meant you liked her.”

   _Regularly_ was pushing it, but it had been more than the once. He’d been afraid if he stopped someone would think he’d grown bored of her and get him someone new.

   In fact the Master did seem to be thinking along those lines. “Or did you want another one?”

   “No, I bloody _don’t_ want another one!” Spike snarled. “I didn’t come to this place for the rough and tumble, I came for Dru’s final legacy, and I don’t want to be distracted by you sending me stupid ninny-headed bints to fill up the time I should be whipping those sods of yours into shape!”

   “I thought she would be a welcome benediction,” the Master said.

   “She’s a distraction,” Spike said. “And she’s annoying.”

   “Well, then we can rid you of her,” the Master said. “Far be it from me to pick and choose your consort, Spike. Pick anyone else, and you have my leave to take her!”

   “I don’t want one.”

   “But you need one, Spike. It’s in every line of you, in every turn of your head, in every flicker on your face, and I can hear it pulsing in every word you speak. You’re lonely. None can measure up to Drusilla, of course, but I thought someone to ease your weary head, a diversion from the pressure of command.... But if you don’t like this one, I will of course have her removed. Julius! Have this _Harmony_ relocated, and we’ll find Spike —”

   “No!” Spike said quickly. “No. I’ll keep her.” At the Master’s knowing smile he added, “I’ve... grown accustomed to her. Don’t want to have to train up another one. But I don’t take kindly to you taking charge of my affairs.”

   “But that is what we do in this Order, Spike. As you well know. Order breeds Order. Order of assignments, of status, of hierarchy. Something you need some more training in, it would seem. Striking. At. Your. Betters.”

   “Don’t tell me Dru never scratched up that pretty face of yours,” Spike snapped. He actually doubted she had, but it would have been a picnic to see. He leaned back and envisioned the Master’s face bleeding and scarred... well, okay, scars could only make it look better.

   The Master laughed. “Oh, she tried. But I could read her so well, you know. Our evil was always much the same... the work of legends....”

   Spike rolled his eyes as the Master pontificated on for a bit, then he lit up a cigarette for something to do with his hands. Hey, that was a thing, he should stash a few more packs in the sewers for Faith to find before he left. Maybe even catch a glimpse of her. He figured if he sang casually down there she’d know who it was and come to him. He’d like to see her... hear rumor of Angel... and through them Buffy....

   He didn’t dare go to Buffy. She’d know. She’d know what he’d done, what he was doing, what he had become in the last few weeks. A killer, a philanderer, a monster. He couldn’t face her. He wouldn’t even be here in the demon district now if he didn’t need more minions. He’d lost more than he liked in the cave-in, and despite his assurance that they’d be ready to work immediately, it turned out that flattened rib cages need some time to heal even for demons. He was down to less than a dozen workers (not counting Harmony, who wouldn’t dig, though she did carry blood and other light tasks) and that was not enough to get the scythe in anything like the time he wanted it out. He was so bloody sick of all of this. He needed to get the damn scythe so he could finally _stop_.

   Finally stopping was going to take the form of taking out the Master and every single one of these other murderous cretins he could lay his hands on. And if they dusted him in the process... well. So much the better. Save Buffy the trouble of doing it herself.

   Because he couldn’t go back now. Not to the life he’d had. That was done.

   “Such a loss... to hear her crying out, in his arms, unable to escape, her thrall useless on her own sire....”

   Spike looked up. He’d lost track of what the Master was saying. The sod chattered worse than Harmony at times, and needed to be attended to no more regularly than she did. “Yeah, well, you’d think she’d have just ripped his eyes out or something.”

   “But she could not! He held the slayer’s stake to her breast, dragging her from her fallen foe in her greatest hour!” He shook his head. “Or so my lieutenants tell me.”

   Spike really didn’t want to hear how this Drusilla in this universe had been dusted. Some part of him still felt for the brain-addled chit, and even if this wasn’t the Dru he knew, he didn’t like thinking of her dust. “Yeah, well. It’s all over now. He’s the one with her dust on his hands, naught to do with me.”

   The Master looked... wicked. “You believed your sire was dust?” he asked.

   Spike looked up. “Well, yeah. You said as much.”

   “I said nothing of the kind, Spike. I believed you understood me when I told you she was lost to us.”

   Spike shook his head, still confused. “What are you on about?”

   “Drusilla was taken,” the Master said.

   Spike felt his head tilt as he listened. “Taken? As in… taken?”

   “Taken. Dragged from our ranks, carried away by her own sire.”

   “And then…?”

   “Never heard from since. I believe he imprisoned her. Perhaps he has entombed her alive, perhaps entrapped with some spell, I cannot trace her. Impossible to do, since he lives like filthy humans, now, even keeping one in his house. Above ground, no less.” He spat.

  “You don’t think he killed her?”

  The Master shrugged expansively. “I have not sensed her death. I have had great doubts that he has turned her to dust. His soul too weighted by guilt, perhaps. Or perhaps his need for her abilities too great.” He smiled. He _had_ to know what this news was doing to Spike. If it had been his universe, if he had been the Spike he was at this time, the news that Drusilla was imprisoned, perhaps entombed, would have been a deeper torture than the damn games the Master had played with him after the raid. And the Master knew that. That was why he’d saved this news for _now_ , when he was irritated with Spike and wanted something to hurt him proper.

  Well, it was still working. Spike was not the façade he had been displaying, and Drusilla was no longer his greatest love, but that didn’t mean he’d _forgotten_ her. Yes, he’d threatened to kill her, but only for Buffy. Only something that powerful could have induced him to want Dru’s death… and also, that was before the soul, and sentiment was a stronger force with him these days.

  “You know she’s here?” Spike asked. “You _knew_ she was here?”

  The Master shrugged again. “Knowledge. Like prophecies. Such tricky things. I believe I know… I do not know that I know. Sometimes I yet believe I still feel Drusilla’s weight, in the web of demonic energies that surround me....” The Master tossed his head. “Ach, but what do I know? The bloodline grows so thin when it grows so far from me. I believed _you_ were dust, Spike, until you came waltzing back to the fold. She’s your sire, perhaps you’re the one to know. Perhaps you were correct when you said she was dust. Perhaps she no longer exists in this realm.... Perhaps Angelus finally wearied of her, or perhaps she sought out the sun.... Still. It is a loss more tragic than.... Spike? Where are you going?”

   “To go see Dru!” Spike shouted behind him.

   

***

 

   “Where is she?”

   Angel looked up from where he had been exercising in his jasmine garden. It was well after midnight. The moon was bright. Angel looked like some Adonis in the night, dancing his bad Tai-Chi with his shirt off. Its only function was to make him look sexy, since he did it too fast to actually get the meditation benefits, and his form was off, so he couldn’t use it for the martial applications. Spike knew all this, and didn’t care. If it made Angel feel good about himself to play at being wise and in control, let him play-pretend his Tai-Chi. Spike knew what he was.

   But Angel didn’t have the vaguest clue who Spike was. Never really had. Spike knew that, and hadn’t cared. Until now.  

   Angel froze as he gazed up the stairs, Spike standing in his black coat at the top of them, head high, face hard. “Buffy? She moved back in with her mom. I thought you’d heard, or...? Anyway, I figured it was better if....” he trailed off. “You don’t mean Buffy, do you.”

   “Drusilla,” Spike said evenly. “Where is she?”

   Spike almost expected a fight. He expected a brawl. He expected to have to beat the truth out of him, or beat the information from him, or bash his head against the sodding wall. This Angel had never really fought him, not like the one in his own universe. He didn’t know what Spike had become. Spike was prepared to show him.

   And it turned out, he didn’t have to. Something in Spike’s voice, or his stance, or his scent, or maybe his soul worked between them. And Angel lowered his head.

   “She’s upstairs,” he said quietly.

   Spike jumped down the side of the staircase, coat flapping, and landed before him. Angel took a subtle step back. Two hardened souls glared at each other out of two pairs of vampire eyes. “Take me to her.”

   Faith’s invite still worked — clearly everyone still felt that this was Faith’s true home — so Angel didn’t have to wake Jenny Calendar to let Spike in. They went carefully up the stairs, Spike’s fist clenched. He really, really wanted to be angry at Angel. He was still hot with human blood, and impulsive with it, but the soul still tempered him.

   “How long?” he asked.

   “Since Kendra,” Angel said, leading him quietly up the stairs.

   Spike had never actually spent any time upstairs in this mansion, either in this universe or the other. In his own universe he’d been wheelchair bound, or pretending to be, and had limited his wanderings to the ground floor and the basement. It was humiliating enough having Drusilla carry him up and down just the one flight. In this universe he’d only spent a few days here before he’d gone undercover, and poking around in Angel’s private affairs really hadn’t been high on the priority list compared to keeping Buffy from freaking out at this unasked-for death-march down Memory Lane.

   The upstairs was uninviting, what Spike saw of it. Unfurnished, echoing concrete. Spike could imagine that the beautifully designed angles and moldings of the rooms and hallways might have been dazzling when decorated in accompanying art deco rugs and hangings and furnishings, but as it was it just looked like some artistic prison. The windows were all boarded up, or sealed over with cardboard and duct tape. Even the light fixtures on the walls had had their angled glass wrapped in protective plastic. It looked industrial, and abandoned, and cold.    

   “Since _Kendra_.” About May, Spike recalled. It was nearly Christmas now. Dru had been a prisoner ever since that time.

   “Dru’s why I invited Faith to move in with me. Faith wasn’t like Kendra. Kendra brought her watcher with her from Jamaica and set up shop with him, but when Faith showed she was all alone. I figured... she had a problem, and I had a problem. She was in that seedy motel. The Master’s minions were raiding here so often, I couldn’t....” He stopped.

   “So they were trying to rescue her, and you...?”

   “It wasn’t a rescue, you know that. They just didn’t want me to have access to any visions Dru might share. They wanted her back, but... you know as well as I do it wasn’t for her own good.”

   “And you? Your keeping her was for her own good?”

   Angel’s face was pained as he turned up the final, narrow stair to the attics. “What else did you want me to do with her, Spike? Let her free to keep killing? Let her keep feeding the Master information about us, about the slayer? Or turn her to dust? Which would you prefer?”

   Spike looked down. Angel had a point.

   “If I had to kill her, I would have. But I didn’t want to. I... found a way around it. It wasn’t perfect,” he said. He pulled up a big key and unlocked a vault-like door at the furthest edge of the attic. “I did what I thought was best.”

   The door opened. Spike took one look and nearly hit Angel anyway. “And this is what you thought was best?” he snapped.

   The vault opened onto a concrete room with a fireplace. The fire had gone cold, but the smell of woodsmoke lingered, so it had been lit within the last few days. The room was nicely decorated, with heavy carpets on the floor and many of Dru’s ubiquitous dolls, but the vampiress herself was chained to the wall opposite the fire, standing with her arms above her head. Her lovely dark hair was matted and tangled. Her face was bloodstained. Her dress, shredded in places.

   Her eyes were vacant. Distant, dreamy, she barely seemed to register when Spike came up and lifted her head. “Hey, hey, pet. Pet?” He caressed her bloodstained chin with his thumb. “Look at me, princess, you here?”

   “She just gets like that,” Angel said. “It’s not like I’ve been beating her or anything.”

   “What’s the blood?” Spike demanded.

   “What?”

   “The blood! What kind is it!”

   “Uh... pig.”

   Spike hated that he couldn’t smell that himself, but his own senses were too full up with all the human smell from the demon district. No doubt Dru could smell that on him. She’d think he was still evil... ach, but he might as well be, these days. “Pig makes her sick, unless it’s really fresh.”

   “I... uh, know. That’s why she’s upright, she can hold it down better if she’s standing, I....”

   Spike glared.

   “What did you want me to do, give her human?”

   “Lamb,” Spike snapped. “She _likes_ lamb. Young turkey, if you can get it. And she’ll drink live rats, no problems.”

   “You want I should catch filthy rats out of the gutter for—”

   “Pet store, you moron!” Spike snarled. “For feeding snakes.” Angel muttered something, but Spike had already dismissed him. “Hey, Dru, love? Come on back to me.”

   Her head lolled. “You were never here,” she whispered.

   Her voice was so weak. Spike cringed. “Where’s the damn key?”

   “What?”

   “The key!”

   “It... just unscrews.”

   Spike reached up and unscrewed the shackles from her wrists. “Why chains?” he demanded. “Was this really necessary?”

   “I didn’t want it to be, all right?” Angel snapped. “She started cutting herself! It was either injure her, drug her, or this! It’s not like I leave her there all the time, I move her around.” He indicated the chair by the fireplace and the bed. Both were also similarly adorned with chains, awaiting Drusilla. “I... used to take her outside, too.”

   “What? Stick a collar on her neck and take her for walkies around the jasmine garden on a leash?”

   Angel looked down. “Wrist,” he said.

   Spike was so done. “Out. Get out, get out!” He would have bundled Angel out physically, but his arms were full of Drusilla, and he wasn’t going to drop her just for that. Angel backed away and closed the door on them. A moment later Spike heard it lock. Well, whatever. If Angel didn’t deign to let him out, Buffy would get on him eventually.

   He carried Drusilla to the bed and looked around the room. There was a wash basin and water jug, all perfect Victorian trappings, for the woman chained in the attic. God. What did Angel think, he was a hero out of some gothic novel? He lay his former, or this universe’s version of his former, on her lace-clad four poster bed and wet a washcloth to clean the dried pig off her face. “Here you go, love,” Spike said. He hoped the cool water would make her more responsive. It did not. He lit the fire — noting that the flue was too narrow for anyone to climb up it — and looked around for anything else that might help to bring her back to this world. There was nothing. None of the dolls even looked like a Miss Edith.

   Well. There was always him. Spike took off his coat and hung it over the back of the chair. “Hey. Look at me, love.”

   Nothing.

   He placed his hand around Dru’s throat and squeezed, hard at first, and then he let up the pressure. Then he did it again. This time when he let up he left his hand there, and whispered, “If you want more, love, you’re going to have to look at me.”

    Slowly, like the fluttering of a moth’s wing, Drusilla’s shadowed eyelids flickered open, and her blue eyes stared at him. “Why didn’t you go away?”

   “I had to come back and look after you, right, pet?” He squeezed hard, and she closed her eyes again, her lips parting in satisfaction. He knew how hard she needed it, how long to keep her there. When he finally let go her eyes opened wider, and she was more present.

   “You’re not my little Spike,” she whispered. “He’s dust on the furniture, I lost him in Prague. I miss Prague. You died in Prague.”

   “I know, love,” he said. He’d half hoped she would think he was her own Spike, but the soul, the eyes, and she was far too wise to fall for an act. She wasn’t like the Master. That was why the Master had wanted her back.

   “You taste like ashes,” she said. “You burned, but you’re here?”

   “Yeah. Long story, love.”

   “Where did you come from?”

   “An echo from another world.”

   “A fairy tale,” she whispered.

   He nodded. “Something like that.”

   “I’m not a porpoise,” she said softly. “I don’t make an excuse.”

   Sometimes, just sometimes, Dru was beyond even him. “That’s all right, love.”

   “I don’t come back with tea and biscuits, it’s all very lonely.”

   “I know.”

   “You don’t know. You never know.” She cringed, and then tilted her head back. “Oh, never, never, quite contrary, what have you done to the garden? Spike!” She sat bolt upright, and Spike grabbed her, hard. She froze in his grip and stared at him. Then, as if she were making perfect sense, she said, “You’ll have to hunt the rabbit. You know that, don’t you? There’s no other way. Run, rabbit, run, rabbit, run, run, run! _Then_ she can run. She can run, run away, but only with the hunter, not the farmer boy. See to it?”

   Spike gazed at her. That was prophecy, but he couldn’t always pin down what she meant. When it came to it, he’d understand. He hoped. “Yeah,” he said. “I’ll see to it.”

   “I’ve been waiting for you,” she said then. “I knew my Angel would wing away… wing, wing away…. That’s what gives us time to dig. I’ve planted many flowers, wither and die under the ground.” She petted Spike’s face. “You’re buried alive in the earth, my pet. Soul buried in the flesh. Do you remember, when I made you climb out of the earth? It’s a different climb you’re making this time, love. A different climb for a different clime.” Then she cringed, retched, shuddered. “I don’t like pigs,” she said petulantly.

   “You should have told him, love.”

   “My Angel doesn’t listen any longer. He can’t see me without the veil before his eyes. He’d like me back the way I was.” She chuckled wickedly. “Finally get him back, now, now. Look at me, Daddy. See what you have wrought….” She shook her head. “He heard. He wouldn’t bring me a pretty urchin.”

   “You’re gonna have to make do with the lamb of god, love,” Spike said.

  “Little lamb, who made thee?” Drusilla whispered. “Dost thou know who made thee?” She stroked Spike’s face, and then his hair again. “Oh, but she made thee over again, in her image, didn’t she? I see her floating all around you, but you’ve pushed her away. Too late, too late. Far too late, the dust and ashes, the burning inside.” She whispered into his ear. “Keep it secret. Keep it safe. Enjoy your tea and biscuits, there’s nothing better….”

   Spike sighed. She was less lucid than usual. Not surprising, the four walls were probably driving her barmier yet. She sank down in his arms, and he held her up. He always hated seeing her weak like this. “What do you need, love?” he asked.

   “Play pretend,” she whispered. “That you love me, still. My wicked, wicked dog.”

   Spike kissed each of her eyes in turn, then yanked at her hair, until she gasped with the pain of it. He vamped up for her, grinning through his fangs. “Yeah. I can do that,” he whispered.

 

***

 

   Angel unlocked the door and was about to just open up when he realized, no, this was Spike and Drusilla, and really he should knock, shouldn’t he? Not that this was the same Spike... or that Dru and this Spike had the same relationship... unless they did. And there was Buffy, too, now, and if they did have the same, then what about...? Should he see if...? And if they were, was it his place to...? Ugh! It wouldn’t have been a question when he was still Angelus. Dru was his, he could just walk in on her. But there was more happening now, lots more, on everyone’s part, and he felt utterly at sea when it came to what was appropriate.

   He took that step back and knocked.

   “‘Spect us to come out?” Spike barked at him, but it sounded more sardonic than actually annoyed.

   Angel came in to find Drusilla in her chair, leaning back while Spike brushed out her long, dark hair. Drusilla hadn’t been taking care of her hair. Angel remembered she used to brush it, back when she was a young fledge and he was still Angelus, and she was still his beloved masterpiece of torment. She hadn’t been taking care of herself much at all since he’d imprisoned her, and he’d expected her to. Was that really all it would have taken? Just... brushing it _for_ her?

   “Um... I... I brought some lamb’s blood,” he said awkwardly. “Um. And, uh... here.” He set down the cardboard Live Animal box of white rats he’d picked up.

   “Where’d you fetch these, my Angel?” Drusilla asked with a coquettish flutter to her blue eyes.

   “Demon district. They don’t _all_ hate me there,” he said at Spike’s look. He couldn’t quite stop himself from running his hand down Drusilla’s soft tresses. He’d forgotten how beautiful she could be when she was put together. “Are you feeling any better?”

   “I could rip your throat out,” she told him with a charming smile. “I’d feel much better, then.” She writhed oddly, tilting her head until she looked like a half finished rag doll, not enough stuffing to fill her out. “Daddy’s twisting in on himself,” she said in a sing song. “I’d like a pretty birdie. One to sing pretty in her cage.”

   Angel shook his head when Spike looked at him. “I tried that. She just let them all die.”

   “Yeah, mate, that’s the point,” Spike said. “She likes watching ‘em starve to death.”

   “I can’t just watch her do that.”

   “You’re the one who put her in here!” Spike snapped. He opened up the cardboard box and pulled out a rat. “Here you are, love.”

   “Ooh! Bonbons!” Drusilla said, darting up from the chair. She grabbed the poor wiggling thing and squeezed it. It screamed, making Angel wince. Part of him wanted to stop her. He couldn’t let her indulge in this evil, but when he made a move — unsure what he planned to do still — she clutched the rat to her chest and backed away from him. “It’s my little screaming toy, Daddy! You go get your own!” She backed away to the corner near the fireplace and proceeded to torture her rat. Its squeaks and squeals were, every single one, like a nail in his head.

   But he had to admit... she looked a lot better.

   “What did you do to her?”

   “Tortured her a little, mate. What did you think?”

   “I....”

   Spike looked at him. “Did you really think you were going to be able to keep her, and not have it be the same?” Angel didn’t know what to say. “You made her so she needs it, Angel. You’re gonna have to keep it up.”

   “I... can’t.”

   “Yeah, you can. If I can, you can. Yeah, it eats into the soul a bit, but it’s worth it in the end. Look at her.”

   Angel did. She was brighter and more lively, and was nibbling on her rat with a smile on her fanged face. The poor thing was squealing still, wet with its own blood, but Dru looked like a child given a candy apple. She’d looked like a wraith for months.

   “How’d you let it get so bad, anyroad?”

   He looked down. “I didn’t mean to. I thought... I could just... keep her here... you know, give her books to read and her dolls to play with? But she didn’t like the doors.”

   “You know she hates being trapped, she needs the sky and the stars. Walls mean screaming to her. You did that too, mate.”

   He knew that. He knew that everything that was wrong with Drusilla was all his fault. That was why even looking at her hurt.

   “She didn’t want to eat,” Angel said. “And she didn’t like it here, and she attacked me a lot. And then... then she started scratching herself, and I had to stop that somehow.... It turned into the chains, and then the force feeding, and then....” He looked at the ceiling. It all sounded wrong, now that he was spelling it out. Everything he’d done had made sense at the time.

   “All just spiraled out of control, eh?”

   “Faith’s better with her,” Angel confessed. “She... calls her my cat. At first she thought I was keeping her for sex but it’s... it’s not like that, it’s just....”

   “You don’t know what else to do with her,” Spike said. “Yeah, I get it.” He frowned. “How’d you keep her from enthralling Faith?”

   “I didn’t, somehow it just didn’t happen. Faith won’t meet her eyes, mostly. And every time Dru attacks her, she just hits her back. It’s... sort of like a game with them. I just... I can’t face her much, Spike. It’s like looking at everything wrong I ever did.”

   “That’s ‘cause it is,” Spike said, without gentleness. He checked the blood Angel had gotten, and took a deep swallow. “Yeah,” he said. “That’ll do her.” He set it down and hitched his coat around his shoulders. “Get her a TV, even if it only plays static. She likes TV. She’ll fill in the programs herself. If she starts scratching herself, whip her. Yes, it’ll hurt you too. Just deal with it. If that doesn’t work, take her down for a bath and hold her under the water for a bit, then take her up here and _hold her_. Don’t just drop her in here. If she won’t eat, get her some live rats, or a lamb to kill.”

   “To...?”

   “Yes, she’ll torture it. What do you want from her? She’s a demon, you know that. If you’re gonna be her gaoler, you need to do it right.” He turned and went up to her. “I’m off, love.”

   “Not fail to kill the slayer,” she said. “Come back to the princess in her tower, won’t you lovey?”

   Spike caressed her cheek. “I’ll see to it you’re taken care of, pet. Promises.”

   “Dust isn’t happy either, my brave knight,” she said. “You don’t want to be him.”

   “Bye, love.” He kissed her forehead and stood up to go.

   “I, uh... I called Buffy,” Angel as Spike went to the door. “Joyce said she was out on patrol, I left a message.”

   Spike closed his eyes for a moment. “I don’t have time for her,” he said, surprising Angel. “Tell her....”

   “Tell her he broke his soul,” Drusilla said behind them. “Dead and buried in the flesh.”

   Spike sagged. “Yeah,” he said. “You might as well tell her that.” He opened the door. “I’m raiding your fridge,” he added as he left, and he slammed the vault door behind him.

   Angel was left watching his own progeny with her tortured rat. “You won’t catch her that way,” Drusilla was telling the rat, or him, or even herself, he couldn’t be sure. She threw the rat she’d been feeding from into the fire, where it screamed one more time before it finally died. She went to fetch another from the box.

   No. He could not watch anymore. He locked Drusilla up again and headed down the stairs, only to find that Spike wasn’t kidding when he said he was raiding the fridge. He’d left it wide open, and most of the pigs blood was gone, some of it spilled across the floor. Why? Had he tripped, or... was he shaking or something? Well... whatever he needed. It had to be worse in the demon district than it was watching Dru with that rat....

   He was cleaning up the spilled blood when the front door burst open and Buffy came panting in. “Spike!” she called out.

   “He’s gone already,” Angel said.

   “He’s gone?” Buffy looked panicked. “He... left? He didn’t wait?”

   “No. He said he had to get back.”

   Buffy ran up to him. “No! He can’t have! He hasn’t been back in weeks!”

   “I—”

   “Where is he? Was he okay? What’s happened to him? Where...?” She was fighting off tears. She grabbed hold of Angel by the shirt, shaking him. “Why would he come to see you, and not me?”

    “I... I don’t know,” Angel said, touched by her desperation. “Dru says his soul is... broken.”

   “Dru?” Buffy looked lost. “What... what does that mean, broken?”

   “I don’t know,” Angel said. He was going to have to explain about Drusilla. Did Buffy even know much about Drusilla? God, he hoped she did, so he wouldn’t have to explain her history. “But there’s something I have to tell you.”

   


	24. Chapter 24

 

_   “Just... remember, he’s a really, really nice guy.” _

   Cordelia waited as the rest of the students filed out of Psych 101, some hurried, some worried, all of them ready to go. There he was, Riley Finn, collecting some assignment while the actual professor, Walsh, bundled up her papers and left. Riley Finn, secret military commando, Iowa farm boy, and also Professor Walsh’s Teacher’s Aide or Assistant or whatever TA actually stood for, filling in the edges on the class. Buffy was right. He wasn’t bad looking at all. Good arms. He looked a lot like Angel, at least at a superficial level. Taller, even. And unlike Angel, whose musculature was supernaturally enhanced, Riley just looked like he worked out a lot.

   She just had to figure out the best way to play him. This was step one — introduction. She’d registered a couple classes for Winter Term (I’m graduating this year, and figured I’d get in some early college credit! Not an outrageous thing for an intelligent high-school senior) and it wasn’t unusual for students to ask teachers what to expect for the next session. But Walsh had a reputation, so it wouldn’t be weird for a new student to talk to her TA instead. Just say hello, get seen, ask a few general questions about the class, and then when step two came into play, he’d be primed.

   She tried to remember all of Buffy’s incredibly contradictory statements about the man who was this universe’s equivalent of her ex.

 

_    “Riley’s a really nice guy,” Buffy started with. “That’s the first thing you have to remember about him, he’s just really nice. But it should be pretty easy to get into his good graces, if you know what his weaknesses are.” _

_    “Well... what are they?” _

_    “Well... he likes to play the hero. Whatever we do, if we’re making him feel like he’s the hero in this, it’ll go over great with him. See, he’s got some ideas about what it is to be a guy, and they’re... well, a little fragile, in some ways. He thinks... he seems to think that men should be strong. But it’s not like he thinks women shouldn’t be allowed to be strong. It’s just that he thinks men should be strong anyway. Naturally.” _

_    “And women shouldn’t be as strong as them? Naturally?” Cordelia asked. _

_    “Well... I don’t know if I’d put it that way,” Buffy said, looking flustered. “It’s just he’s a really nice guy, so he wants to be strong for the women in his life, you know?” _

_    “What if a woman is strong? Naturally?” _

_    “Well... he sort of thinks he should be stronger.” _

_    “Naturally?” _

_    “Or... unnaturally,” Buffy confessed. “It doesn’t really help that Walsh and everyone has him on amphetamines or something.” _

_    “Wait, this guy is a druggie?” _

_    “He doesn’t know it,” Buffy assured her. “They’re spiking his food or something, but it’ll really screw him up if we get him off it real fast, so we have to make sure he stays in enough contact that they can keep his dosage up, or he’ll... um... go into withdrawal.” _

_    “So... he’s on drugs,” Cordy said, “and he thinks he should be stronger naturally, so... he’s unnaturally strong, and he thinks that’s... what? Just because he’s a guy? Naturally superbutch?” _

_    “No, just, you know. Training. He’s a really great guy, you know? Dedicated. Um....” _

_    “Nice?” Cordelia asked. _

_    Buffy actually blushed. _

 

   The class had mostly cleared now, and Riley was collecting his papers. Cordelia jumped in carrying her notepad as the last student left. “Hi!” she said, smiling brightly. She’d put vaseline on her teeth, so her smile was positively dazzling, and she knew her makeup was perfect. Her neckline was low, but not eye-catching, sort of innocent, as if the wearer didn’t realize she was showing cleavage. Fashionable, but not too expensive. Didn’t want to look out of his league. And a skirt, but nothing that looked too formal.

 

_    “Go for sexy, but not slutty,” Buffy told her. “He doesn’t like it when women seem too sexually aggressive, but he does like to look at them.” _

_    “So, he wants to be the one to make the first move?” Cordy asked. _

_    “Yeah, but you have to be really clear, or he’ll stumble over himself. It’s like... he has to know you like him, but he wants to be sure he  _ made _ you like him, not that you just liked him and went to him on your own, you know? Cause he doesn’t like, you know… slutty girls.” _

_    “So... he wants to be in control.” _

_    “I... wouldn’t put it like that,” Buffy said awkwardly. _

_    “But that’s exactly what you just said. He doesn’t like it if he thinks  _ you _ went after  _ him _. He has to like you first. He needs to control the relationship.” _

_    “Well... yeah. But... that’s... he does  _ mean _ it when he likes you, you know? He’s really  _ nice, _ it’s not like he’s trying to  _ control _ you. It’s just....” _

_    “He wants to be in control.” _

_    Buffy looked down. “Yeah.” _

_    “So, if I stumble and knock stuff over? Will that make me look helpless enough?” _

_    Buffy’s blush got deeper, and she nodded. “Yeah. That’s... um... that is sort of how I met him.” _

 

   Cordelia smiled brightly and held out her hand to Riley. “Hi, I’m Cordelia Chase, I was registering for Winter term and I... oops!” Her hand carelessly brushed against the pile of papers  he had been neatly piling. “Oh, god, I’m sorry!” She bent down and hurriedly tried to pick the papers up, bumping up against him when he tried to do the same. “Man, I’ve just been bumping into everything today! I don’t know what’s wrong with me.” She smiled up at him as he looked over at her.

   “Nah, it’s okay,” Riley said, and — score! 1-love Cordelia — glanced at her cleavage. “It’s kinda fun picking things up.”

   “I’ll just bet it is,” Cordy said, jumping on the double entendre. Ah, so he was clever enough to catch it. Recognition flashed in his eyes. She held out her hand again, now that the papers were out of the way. “Cordelia.”

   “Riley,” he said.

   Cordy hesitated, as if she was mesmerized by his eyes. “Oh... um. Yeah. I was just wanting to ask a few questions? About next term? ‘Cause, see, I was taking a few classes, and....” She gabbled on about the syllabus and reading lists and what to expect from the class, dropping in just enough about her family and her expectations that she knew she’d be intriguing.

__

_    “What interests him?” _

_    “Um... well. He likes driving.” _

_    “Like, race cars?” _

_    “No. Like, just... driving. Like, he’d get me into his car, and he’d drive down the interstate, and, um... you know. We’d hit some diner, or... or a truck stop or something, and we’d see what they had for sale....” _

_    “The guy visited truck stops? Like... voluntarily?” _

_    “Well... yeah. But that’s not all he liked to do. Like. Um... he’d play basketball.” _

_    “For the college?” _

_    “No. No, just... with his buddies.” _

_    “And he liked you to watch, huh?” _

_    “Actually... no. He got... kinda pissed off if I interfered with his guy time.” _

_    “Independent type, huh?” _

_    “Well, no. Actually, he really really wanted to be needed. He’d... get kinda hurt or... or even angry if it seemed like you... didn’t want him there.” _

_    Cordy was confused. “So... he wanted you at his beck and call, but would get really pissed off if you interfered with his private life.” _

_    “Well... yeah. But he was really nice!” _

_    “How?” _

_    “Um... he helped me move a few times. Carrying boxes and stuff. And-and he would watch my sister! If I told him to. Uh... sometimes.” _

_    “Big on family, huh?” _

_    “Well... I... don’t know. I mean... he sort of told me I was too protective of them. I mean, my mom was all better by then, and he had a point about Dawn, she was fourteen, and it’s not like he  _ knew _ she was a mystical inter-dimensional key that a hellgod was trying to murder.” _

_    Cordy blinked. “That... sounds like a big thing not to know.” _

_    “Well, I hadn’t told him.” _

_    “Why not?” _

_    Buffy looked lost. “It’s... hard to explain. I mean, he was part of this military thing, and I wasn’t sure... I mean, what they’d do if they found out about her, and....” _

_    “You didn’t trust him?” _

_    “Well... it’s not like I didn’t trust  _ him. _ I just... didn’t trust  _ them. _ I knew  _ Riley _ was nice, I just wasn’t sure about....” _

_    “But you didn’t trust him not to tell them?” _

_    She looked down. _

_    This was telling Cordelia a lot, but not exactly what she needed to know. “So. Driving, casual basketball, and... the military? Tell me there’s something else.” _

_    Buffy looked utterly blank. “Cheese?” _

__

   “So there we were, me and Daddy, courtside Lakers tickets, and what happens? Nacho cheese, all down the front of my white sweater. It was hilarious.”

   Riley was smiling, but it was only polite. She was losing him. Best to cut it as short as possible, because really, Buffy had given her nothing to work with. The man had no interests, no passions, no fantasies, nothing. If she could just get him talking, then she could smile and agree a lot, but the spark wasn’t there. Yet. That was okay. This was only stage one, after all.

   “Anyway, if I follow the weblink on this sheet, I can track down next semester’s syllabus?”

   “Absolutely,” Riley said.

   “That’s really great. You are such a life saver!” Cordy took his hand and clasped it warmly, as if she were hugging it more than as if were shaking it. She smiled broadly, tossed her head so her hair caught the light, and moved her shoulders to accentuate her chest. “Thanks so much!”

   “You’re welcome. I’ll see you next term... Cordelia, was it?”

   “Cordy,” Cordelia said. “I really can’t wait.”

_    It’s time to get this over with,  _ she thought.

 

_    “So, let me get this straight,” Cordy said. “He’s really, really nice. But he made you feel bad about yourself all the time. He supports strong women, but he wanted to be stronger than you, and was willing to risk a heart attack rather than be weaker. He thought your calling was the most important thing, but got pissy if you actually wanted to go do it. He’s totally upright and moral, but he’s not going to blink twice at dating a teenage student whose papers he grades. He’s down-home goodness, but he’s an addict. He loves family life, but whined when you wanted to spend time with your sister or your dying mother instead of him. He wanted you to include him, but got pissed off if the inclusion wasn’t important enough. He helped your friends, but sort of flaked out on them a lot, to the point where it actually risked their lives. He trusted you, but assumed you were sleeping with your exes, or crushing on Spike. He really loved you, but broke up with you because.... Why was it?” _

_    “We... didn’t exactly break up,” Buffy said. “We had a fight. He... didn’t really give me a chance to try and work it out, he just... planned to leave unless I forgave him right away.” _

_    “What was the fight about?” _

_    “Um....” _

_    It took Cordy a lot of pressing to finally get the answer. And when she did, she was startled. _

_    “It wasn’t his fault!” Buffy insisted. “I made him feel weak, and I was never there for him, not the way I could have been, and... and he didn’t feel needed, and he said they...  _ they _ needed him, they....” _

_“The guy was cheating on you, in a mystic, bitey, don’t tell me you can’t get STD’s from that way, somehow got you to believe it was all_ your _fault he did it, and then expected you to just_ forgive him?  _Like_ that? _” Cordelia snapped._

_    “I don’t know what he expected,” Buffy said. “Yeah. Yeah, I think... I think he did.” _

_    Cordelia rolled her eyes. “Buffy? Why on earth were you dating this guy in the first place?” _

_    All of Buffy’s awkwardness and prevarication seemed to fall away, and she just looked sad. “I was looking for someone normal. That was what I thought I needed. Riley seemed like Joe Normal. By the time I realized things  _ weren’t _ normal, in all the worst ways, I was... kind of invested. And I had gotten it into my head that when you love someone, you do... whatever it takes for them. Go through hell and high-water and forgive all their mistakes and shortcomings, even when you get a lot of warning signs that you should get out.... I had learned to stay. So I stayed.” _

_    “How the hell did you get that dumb idea?” _

_    Buffy’s sadness got even deeper, and she looked down. Then she said what Cordy had been afraid she’d say. _

_    “Dating Angel.” _

__

   Cordy left the hall, glad that stage one of Seduce Riley was underway. She’d made first contact. The second stage was arranged for later that night.

   She had a date with Angel.

__

***

 

   “I don’t like this, Cordy.”

   “You don’t get to judge.”

   Angel grunted as they lurked behind the hedges between the Psych Building and Lowell House. He was… brooding. 

   It had been a real trick getting a vampire onto the campus in the first place. The UC Sunnydale Campus was a fortress these days, after a largely successful attempt to turn it into a safe zone. There were electric fences, crosses on walls, guards at the gates. After what Buffy had told them about the Initiative being based there, it didn’t surprise anyone that the guards were actual military commandos. Buffy’s theory was that they were actual Initiative, setting up a little more blatantly in this universe, what with the Master being so damn obvious. The sewers were blocked and wired, the fences were on constantly, and students were tested with crosses before they were allowed to pass the thresholds. It meant the campus was considerably safer than Sunnydale proper, and there was no curfew, but the only way Cordy was able to get Angel in was hidden in a duffle bag in the trunk of her car, and even then they’d determined she could only do that at like high noon, when security was a little more lax.

   Angel was, as Xander would have put it, not particularly gruntled. Cordy didn’t blame him. He had spent six hours gently steaming in her trunk. When she let him out, he complained that the trunk let light in through the edges. He had tiny lines of sun burns on his hands.

   “I don’t think it’ll work anyway,” he muttered. “I can’t believe Buffy signed off on this.”

   “It was Buffy’s plan in the first place,” Cordy snapped. “And it’ll work. She should know. He’s her ex.”

   “Ex?”

   Cordy glanced at him. Did Buffy not tell him this? Well, why should she? “Sort of. Someone just like him, anyway, from her own universe.”

   Angel frowned. “I still don’t like it,” he said. “You’re whoring yourself out for this. No mission is worth that.”

   “I’m not whoring myself,” Cordy snapped. “Buffy said I don’t have to sleep with him for it to be a scandal. We just need at least one shot of us kissing, enough that we could  _ say  _ he was sleeping with me. And I’m going to be an actress,” she added. “Kissing on command is something all actresses have to do.”

   “So you’re not actually dating this guy. You’re just  _ acting. _ ”

   “Exactly.”

   There was a heavy pause. “Don’t you wanna date this guy?”

   “What do you mean?”

   “Well... you said he... uh. Was Buffy’s ex. I mean....”

   Cordy turned and raised her eyebrow.

   “I mean, don’t you have similar taste in guys, or...?”

   “Angel? Put the shovel down, before you dig yourself too deep into that hole.”

   Angel stopped digging. He looked really uncomfortable. Cordy was annoyed. She’d been really hurt when her play for him had failed, and she couldn’t even understand why. It wasn’t as if dating a vampire had been high on her list of life goals. But at the same time, she sort of loved Angel, in a tiny way. His quest to be better touched her. It hadn’t mattered much when she was all hung up on Xander, but she’d always thought he was cute, and had made several plays for him before she’d figured out he was a vampire, all of them similarly shot down, or ignored. She’d always figured that was Buffy’s fault, even after she died, with the grief and all. Now she knew whatever was keeping her and Angel from clicking had more to do with Angel than with Buffy. Even if she and Angel were remarkably compatible on a day-to-day basis — and from what she’d seen of him, they were — there was something fundamentally wrong with the guy. She wondered if it was that curse.

   In the end, it didn’t matter. He didn’t want her. If he’d wanted her, he’d have done something different after she’d kissed him, talked to her or tried to figure out what kind of relationship they actually wanted. Instead he’d just shut down, shut her out, and hadn’t really spoken to her since.

   That was answer enough.

   Angel was looking anxious. “Buffy says her exes were all bad news.”

   “She said this one was nice,” Cordy said honestly, leaving out all the other things.

   “Yet you’re going to be destroying his career?”

   “Greater good, Angel.”

   “Do the ends justify the means?”

   “This is really,  _ really _ rich coming from you,” Cordy snapped. “If you don’t want me doing this, come up with something better. But, before you say anything, your plan had better not have anyone dying, anyone being maimed, or tortured, or anyone suffering lasting harm.” She raised her eyebrow. “Well? I’m waiting. What’s your vaunted, blood free plan?”

   Angel looked lost. After a little bit he said, “I still don’t think it’s right. Controlling or... manipulating people with sex.”

   “Maybe it’s not, but this is something I can do. I’m not a slayer. I don’t have super strength. I don’t have demony vampire powers. I’m not a witch, I’m not a magician, I’m just me. I have my brain and I have my body and I have a soul that wants to do something to help. People are  _ dying, _ Angel. This institution Buffy wants to take down is  _ evil _ . Rather than trying to slut-shame me into feeling bad about it, maybe you could, oh, I don’t know, say,  _ Wow, Cordelia. You’re so good to make this sacrifice. It’s really impressive that you’d be willing to do this for the sake of humanity and all demonkind. Look at how amazing you are, using your skills and your assets to help people. Look at all the good you’re doing. My god, Cordelia, I admire you so much. I’m proud of you. Thank you, on behalf of the planet. You. Are. Fantastic. _ ” She smiled brightly at him.

   “You  _ are _ fantastic,” Angel said quietly. “And you deserve better than to be used like this.”

   Cordy was actually pissed off.  _ Now _ he gave her compliments! “We  _ all _ deserve better, Angel,” she said. “None of us are going to get it.” She looked out. There was Riley, moving from the Psych Building to his frat house. “It’s show time. Get your makeup on.”

   “Got it,” Angel said through his fangs.

   “Don’t let Riley kill you.”

   “It doesn’t look like he has a stake on him.”

   “Yeah, still. You got your escape route? Buffy says these guys have nasty scent tracking devices.”

   “Willow and her new friend were going to float me over the fence,” Angel said. “I hope they can. I’m a heavy thing to levitate. If they can’t... I guess I’ll go hide in your trunk again.”

   Cordy hoped they could, too. She didn’t want to have to explain to Angel why she hadn’t taken her car home. Yeah, Buffy had said she didn’t have to sleep with Riley, if she didn’t want to. But when Cordy had pressed, she had admitted, yes. It would be a lot easier to take Walsh and Riley down if they caught more than just the one kiss on tape.

   Cordelia hadn’t decided yet if she was going to go all the way with this. But Riley was cute.

   And she was really fucking sick of being the good girl.

 

***

 

   “I waited outside the campus gate for her to come out, after,” Angel said. “She didn’t.”

   “But the play went down okay?” Buffy pressed him. “Random attack by a vampire, rescued at the last second by the gallant American hero?”

   “It was like a goddamn comic book,” Angel muttered. “I grabbed, she screamed, he yelled, he punched, I growled, he chased, she cried out, and he shouted after me so he could go tend her.” He grunted. “I could all but read the  _ POW!!!  _ bubble around his fist.” 

   “What did he shout?” Xander asked anxiously.

   “Uh...  _ ‘You better run,’ _ I think,” Angel said.

   Xander’s face was tight. “Do you think she’s okay? She didn’t come out?”

   “Yeah. Waited by the campus gate for over an hour. Her car never....” Angel shrugged.

   “So... she’s still in there. She’s still with him.”

   “Probably,” Angel muttered.

   Angel and Xander sat glumly beside each other, identical looks on their faces. Buffy almost laughed, but she didn’t think it was fair. Of course they were unhappy. Here was Cordy’s ex, and her... well, whatever Cordy and Angel were, flirt partners? Both of them cast aside for a tall, buff soldier man who Cordy had every reason to seduce. Angel looked the most disapproving. Xander was starting to look nervous.

   “What if Riley caught on?” he asked. “What if they’ve dragged her down to that compound you mentioned and they’re interrogating her? Or trying to implant demon cyborg body parts in her? God, Buffy, what if he took her down there, and like injected her with demon blood? They’ll turn her into a vampire!”

   “He probably took her to the campus coffee shop,” Buffy said. “The only demonic influence she’ll have in her bloodstream is too many shots of espresso. They’re fine. If anything goes wrong, Cordy has her cell phone. She knows our phone numbers.”

   “Still, I don’t like this plan,” Angel said.

   “Neither do I,” Xander muttered.

   “Riley’s not dangerous,” Buffy said. “Not to a human girl with nice tits.”

   “You said he was abusive... and unethical,” Angel muttered.

   “Only to a slayer who wasn’t what he wanted,” Buffy said. “He wouldn’t just randomly hurt some woman. He had his flaws, but rape and murder weren’t among them. Well. Unless you were a demon.” She stopped with the sudden horrified stares Xander and Angel were giving her. “I... I mean the murder. Obviously. Not the other…. And I don’t mean actual murdering, I mean…. He kills demons, is what I’m saying. That’s all.” Their stares were not any less horrified. “He’s not gonna hurt Cordy!” she insisted more loudly. “If anything he’d make her stay home with a god damn apron on, okay? Back to work. Xander? You done with your assignment?”

   “Yeah, pretty much. A page or two more to write up, then I just got to get it to Willow,” he said. Then, unable to drop the subject, he glared at her. “I can’t believe you did this to her, Buffy. I mean, you’re pimping out my girlfriend.”

   “First off, she broke up with you, so no, she’s not your girlfriend. Secondly, this was  _ her _ idea. My plan, but her idea to be the scandal bait. Thirdly, I didn’t ask her to have sex with him, but if she chooses to, as a grown woman over eighteen, that’s hardly my job to police her choices.”

   “Wait... she might choose to?” Xander looked even more horrified. “I... I thought they just had to kiss or something! What if he...? I mean he’s not... she’s not as strong as you, Buffy! I mean... he could...? They could...!”

   “He’s missionary vanilla, both of you just cool it.” She couldn’t help but laugh this time. “Cordy’s fine, she’s on a college campus chatting up a grad student. Just another day in the life of Cordelia Chase.”

   “I just don’t think it’s right,” Angel said. “Sex shouldn’t be used like that.”

   Something about the contempt in his tone made Buffy’s blood boil. Her amusement at the boys evaporated, and she was left with steaming rage at the hypocrisy. She glared at them, at Angel in particular. “It is the whole world over, Angel. And  _ you _ don’t have a leg to stand on.”

   She stalked roughly out of the library, ready to go home, but Angel followed her out to the hall. He grabbed her arm and turned her. “Stop!” he said, his voice low. He gripped her by the upper arms and growled into her face. “What happened to you was not my fault.”

   No. It wasn’t. But there were too many parallels between this universe and her own. She knew things would have played out just the same if this Buffy had lived. “You can’t _ fix it _ either, Angel. Let me go.”

   Angel looked surprised that he was holding her. He let go. “I....” He swallowed.

   “That’s what did it, right there,” she said. “That’s why you lost your soul. The fact that you thought you had the right to do whatever you damn well pleased with me. The right to grab me. The right to stalk me. The right to take me.” She didn’t know why she was shaking, or why this had made her emotions boil up so high, but she felt right at the edge. “Cordy can do what she wants. If she wants to own her sexuality, she can. It took me years to get to the point where I could. After being...” 

   She stopped. She didn’t want to say raped, because it hadn’t felt like a rape, and she didn’t want to say seduced, because it hadn’t really felt like a seduction, either. But she also hadn’t felt she had control over that situation that night, even before it had gone so sour. She had lost her virginity at a very young age in a way that ultimately made her feel powerless to say either yes or no, and it was used to create a monster. Used. She had been _ used. _ And then after she’d tried to end everything she’d been dragged back into it, assaulted in her dreams by heady visions of....

  Oh. It was a few days before Christmas. So  _ that _ was why she was so on edge. “Angel? You’re not getting weird visions, are you? Memories of your past, guilt dreams, ghosts of people you’ve killed, things like that?”

   “What? No. Should I be?”

   “Not really,” Buffy said. “I guess that door hasn’t been opened here. If it happens, you tell me, okay?”

   “Tell you what?”

   “If you start having visions!” Buffy snapped. “If some potent evil power from beyond the edge of the universe tells you to rape me so that you can feel happy again, you fucking tell me, so I can kill the bringers and stop it!”

   Angel winced. “That... that happened?”

   “Yeah. And it could happen again. And the fact that you felt raping me would give you a perfect happy kinda wigs me out, but I hadn’t thought about that at the time. I was too busy caving to your suicide threat!”

   “Buffy, calm down.”

   “I don’t want to calm down!” Buffy yelled at him. “I’m sick of this! I wanted to be home by now!”

   “Buffy—”

   “I miss Spike!” she shouted.

   Oh, god, there it was. The center core of everything, all her anger, all her resentment, her blissfully sanguine view of sending Cordy off with Riley. She missed Spike. She  _ missed  _ him. She rubbed the tears from her eyes. “Is he okay? God, tell me he’s okay!”

   Angel’s face was soft with sympathy. “Do you want me to go check?”

   Buffy sniffed. She knew she should say no. She knew she should give it up and trust Spike and just let him do his mission. But she was so damn worried! She hadn’t seen him since the raid on the school.

   “I’ll go check,” Angel said quietly, before she said yes or no. “I’ll head out to the vineyard, sneak in with the other vampires.”

   “What if you’re caught?” Buffy asked, oddly not telling him not to bother.

   “Then they’ll just know our faction knows they have something going on down there. Doesn’t blow Spike’s cover at all. Might even get the Master to speed things up.”

   Buffy swallowed. “Be careful,” she whispered.

   “Okay.” Angel paused. “If I offered you a hug, would you freak out?”

   Buffy chuckled and stepped forward, and Angel’s arms went around her. He held her gently for a brief moment. “I  _ am _ sorry about what happened with us,” he said. “I mean with you, with him.”

   “I know it wasn’t really you.”

   “But you also know it would have been,” Angel said. “If only there was some way this soul....” He sighed. “I’ll go check on Spike,” he said instead. “You go on back to your mother’s. I’ll give you an update when I get back.”

   “Tell him I miss him,” Buffy said. “And tell him... tell him he’s invited for Christmas.” She rubbed the tears from her eyes.

   “Yeah. I can tell him that.”

   “Thanks. ‘Cause I’d really like this Christmas to be a little better than the last time I had to do it.”

   “Sounds like that wouldn’t be hard. Suicide attempts, crazy guilt visions... uh....” He didn’t mention the rape threat. She didn’t blame him.

   “Yeah, well.” She shrugged. “At least it snowed.”


	25. Chapter 25

 

   The Big Bad lay on his satin shrouded bed while his minions carried out his bidding below. He was doing his best not to think. He had his arm around his pretty young fledge — his pet, to be honest — holding her with as much thought and emotion as one would give to holding a stuffed animal, or even a pillow, just something to support his body. She was fondly caressing his bare chest, chattering on about something some other fledge said. He had tuned her out, as much as he’d tuned out the screams from the three victims below, which he was finally too exhausted to have tried to stop his minions from bringing.

   The rational part of his mind told him that these victims would be just as tortured and eaten in the demon district as they would here. These same minions would have killed them. Location meant nothing, save that here he could make the vampires work. And here, he had to listen to it.

   The rest of his mind wasn’t thinking about anything at all. Even when his pet fledge abandoned his chest and turned her chattering mouth to other things. She did this, and he let her, and his body felt it, and he supposed it felt good, in the same way that the human blood tasted good, and the kills he had been forced into rushed through his demonic being. Good. Good. It’s all good.

   Spike himself felt almost none of it. He went through the motions, and he chose the lesser evil, over and over again, and if he had to be half deaf to avoid listening to the horror, and he had to be half blind to stop himself from looking at it, and he had to be numb to avoid the sweet rush of the human blood he took — still from the extractions, if he could help it — and if he had to turn off his body to not feel what was happening to it, “for his pleasure,” well. That was all right. He wasn’t a person after all. He was just a thing. A thing on a mission. A mission for....

   And whenever his thoughts turned that way, they disappeared into a tiny bright candle flame of longing at his core, which the rest of him couldn’t even see. It was too deep inside the blackness for the blackness to look at it. His soul had shrunk down to the memory of the slayer, to the point where the memory itself was blurry. He knew the role. He would play it. That was all.

   And the role meant that when a sound clinked against his white painted window, he heard it. He sat up, nearly kneeing Harmony in the chin. “Oh, Spike!” she moaned, as if expecting him to flip her over and actually reciprocate, something he really couldn’t be bothered to do.

   “Shut up!” he muttered.

   She did, but only to put her mouth back on him again, which annoyed him. He shoved her off him, and she pouted. “God, you are  _ never _ in the mood!” she snapped.

   “Shut up, I heard something.” There it was again. Another clink. Then  _ clink clink _ , silence.  _ Clink clink, _ silence.

   Oh. It was Angel. They hadn’t used that code in ages, but Spike still remembered it from his own fledge days.

   “Stay here,” he growled, zipping up his pants.

   “What, like your dumb dog!” Harmony yipped.

   “Yes!” he barked back, and she shrank away.

   “Sorry,” she whispered. She looked scared. She was right to be.

   The truth was, he was both more gentle and more cruel to this Harmony than he ever was to the one in his own universe. He had let both himself and his own Harmony think of her as his girlfriend. Not a long-term anything, but real enough, with some level of affection. This Harmony was a minion. Some part of him had always thought of his own Harmony in a minion-like way, but there had always been a certain affectionate condescension toward her. If he had been allowed to keep this one, not as a sex partner, but as a simple companion, they might have had that kind of relationship too. But since sex was prescribed, by a force outside of both of them that was utterly evil and not what he wanted, he could not keep that resentment from spilling out onto her.

   The distinction was clear. She was not a girlfriend, even if she clung to that title like a straw in a flood. She was a bed-pet, that was all. That was the role the Master had ascribed to her, and it was what Spike kept her as. He’d bark at her, order her around, would not play with or talk to her. There was no joy in this relationship.

   Yet as much as he wished he was made of ice, he wasn’t. So when the exhaustion overcame him, he would find her, and take her, and cling to her in the bed like a child clutches a doll. It wasn’t him, any more than the Big Bad was the truth of him, but it was the other side of the mad coin he had become, and if one side was hard and the other side was soft, the core of the coin was still untouched. In almost a fugue state he would make her his. It was cold, a false comfort, but a comfort nonetheless.

   When he took her wordlessly in pain, he was kinder than he’d ever been to his own Harmony. When he came back out of the fugue, he was hard again. Hard enough she feared dusting, and she should. He wouldn’t have felt anything about it.

   If he had consulted his soul, it would have said it wasn’t fair to her. But it was hiding. None of this was fair to it, either, and it couldn’t come out enough to care. If it started to care, it would break full, and it had already retreated.

   There was really only one creature on the planet who could even begin to understand it, and he was outside. Spike went out and around the derelict winery. He was strong now, flush with human blood, and his senses were on hyper alert every moment. Angel was there, in the shadows, and he was alone.

    Spike stretched in the moonlight, then sauntered off, as if just going for a walk. He strolled away from Angel, casually swinging one arm in the direction he was headed, a gesture meant to say follow me. Angel paced him in the woods, and when they finally met up in a hollow among the abandoned vines, Spike was sure none of the minions were tailing him. The winery glowed faintly in the distance, torchlight flickering.

   “Is there trouble?” Spike asked.

   Angel’s face was hard, perplexed. It looked like the older vampire was trying to read him. Spike wished him good luck with the endeavor. He couldn’t even read himself, and he was inside it. “Buffy misses you.”

   Spike heard the words, and couldn’t connect them to anything real. Of course Buffy missed him. He couldn’t care about that and stay sane. “So, no, then,” he said. “I’m well enough. Thanks for checking.” He turned to leave.

   “No, you don’t!” Angel grabbed his arm and turned him back to face him, incredulous. “What are you doing?”

   “Heading back.”

   “No, what are you  _ doing? _ ” Angel asked. “You never walk away from something like this. You don’t just dismiss someone who cares about you. Even without the soul, what...?”

   One of the victims in the basement screamed. The sound carried over the night like a falling feather, pale and soft. Spike couldn’t even muster up the energy to wince.

   “What was that?”

   “A victim.”

   Angel looked startled. “What?”

   “They’re killing someone.”

   Angel was horrified. Spike wondered, idly, if he would have mustered that level of horror once. He hoped maybe he had. But maybe he hadn’t. Maybe these last years of playing the white hat were just window dressing. He knew the core of him wasn’t black. But maybe it wasn’t anything at all. Maybe he really was dead inside.

   “Come on.” Angel was suddenly all energy. “If we hurry we can stop—”

   “No,” Spike said, grabbing Angel’s arm. Now it was Angel’s turn to look bewildered.

   “Are you saying...?”

   “If it goes on too long, I’ll end it fast,” Spike said. “Let it go.”

   “I can’t let it go! Someone’s dying over there, and you’re just going to sit by and...?”

   “Yep.”

   “Well, I’m not! I—”

   Spike didn’t let him go. The man didn’t have the momentum to wrench him off, so they just stood there, Spike’s feet planted in the loam, Angel wrenching at his grip. He pulled, he couldn’t break Spike’s hold, so he hit him.

_ God  _ it felt good. Spike let himself hit Angel back, over and over again. Angel hit him hard, strength in his age, and he knew Spike. He knew just where to hit him to make it  _ really _ hurt. Spike didn’t fight back hard enough. The fight was brief, brutal, powerful, and Spike lost it. Of course he lost it. He didn’t want to win.

   Angel had him down on his back in the dirt, bruised, battered, Angel’s greater strength holding him down. Now this was familiar. Was Angel going to bite him now? Take him, claim him, make him submit? That would be better. Better than this, anyway. “You have a soul!” Angel snarled down at him, his cold breath harsh in Spike’s face. He wasn’t vamped. “How can you just let that happen?”

   “How can I not?” Spike asked. His voice, he noticed, held no emotion. “Do it, Angel. Go do it. Please.  _ Please. _ ” Oh, there was some feeling. Had to lock that down. “I’ll help you, if that’s what you want. What’s the plan? Charge in, fists and fangs, yeah? Then what about the rest of them?”

   “What rest of them?”

   “The ones in the demon district. The ones in the feeding pens, what about them? What about the ones being bussed in, what about the ones being picked off at night, got a plan for them? What about the Master, eh? What about the rest of it? What about the world? What’s the plan? Tell me you have some better plan, please,” he begged. “You were always the mastermind, yeah? Tell me you have a way out of this?”

   Angel blinked, looking just as helpless as Spike felt. His hand reached out and touched Spike’s cheek, just for a moment, as if unsure what to do. Then he slowly backed away.

   Spike picked himself up after Angel’s weight left him, brushing some of the dirt off his bare chest. The bruises... fuck. He was going to have to have to bring Angel in nearby to fight publically, or spin some tale or.... Well, whatever. The two souled vampires sat in the derelict winter vines and stared hopelessly at one another.

   “For a minute I thought you’d really....”

   “Yeah, I ask myself that every damn day,” Spike said. “How the hell did you do it?”

   “What do you mean?”

   “When you chased down Darla, and played the Big Bad for her for those months. What did you do? How’d you keep the play?”

   “It... I....” Angel looked down. “It wasn’t like this,” he confessed. “With Darla. I was actually trying to be evil, it was just hard. There was no... greater purpose, really.”

   “Bugger. I was hoping you had some trick.”

   “I’d say that was it,” Angel said. “Focus on the greater purpose.”

   Spike shook his head. “I can’t do that, either.”

   “Why not?”

   “It’s too far away.” He looked up at the sky. His jaw creaked where Angel had cracked something. “If I look that far away, I have to see everything between here and there. I just keep trying to get through the next minute, and the next.”

   Another distant scream made Angel wince.

   “I’d better go tell them they’re pissing me off,” Spike said. “They scream too many times and I can do that. I won’t let them rape, at least. They bring back these victims to kill, but I won’t let them keep them on ice, and feed slow. I can keep it tamped down. I just can’t stop it....”

   And suddenly he did cringe. No. No, no, no,  _ no, _ he couldn’t let the wall down, he couldn’t let the shell crack, he couldn’t…!

   But he did. For a moment a choked sound of horror tried to flee from the prison he was keeping his soul and his emotions inside of, and his body recoiled, and his face crumpled, and he found himself whimpering, “Oh, god, I can’t stop it!”

   He was startled to find Angel’s arms around him, as the older vampire, not really his sire but close enough, caught him and held him tightly. “My god, Willy, I’m sorry.”

   Not Angel. Not Angel, not Harmony, not Drusilla, none of them were real here, none of them  _ his _ here, but in the moment it didn’t have to matter. Spike let himself cringe inside his old sire’s arms for a half a moment, before he could stuff his core back inside and close it up again. He took in a deep breath and gently shrugged Angel off. 

   “I’m okay,” he said, impassive again. He looked up at Angel. “Actually, yeah. Go try to rescue them. You just have to lose when I stop you.”

   “Huh?”

   “I have to explain these bruises somehow,” Spike said, indicating his battered body. “Go in, start a brawl, I’ll beat you back out. Should galvanize those bastards into moving faster.”

   “Not really why I came, but yeah, I can do that,” Angel said. “How did you explain coming to see Drusilla, anyway?”

   “Told the Master you and I had words, but I couldn’t get inside,” Spike said. “Remember, he doesn’t like killing his own line himself, so he got my not wanting to dust you, or you me.”

   “Fair enough,” Angel said. “Um, Buffy... Buffy wanted me to invite you for Christmas.”

   Spike looked up. “Christmas?”

   “Yeah. It seemed important to her.”

   Christmas ‘98 was a big deal for Buffy. She’d told him a little about it, it tended to come up any time she got drunk around Christmas. From what he understood, it involved some deeply questionable by-definition-non-consensual-mind-sex, some very unpleasant images of Angel’s memories, and the First Evil. That was the first time she’d mentioned it, when she explained about how the First could manipulate people. Spike had been twisted, tortured, broken, confused, and feeling terribly guilty that he had allowed the First into his head in the first place. Buffy had told him he wasn’t the only one.

   All those nights, curled up in her basement in Sunnydale, talking over past exploits, confessing past sins. All the time after, as he’d slowly been putting her back together. And still when she was drunk those scars would surface, and she’d complain about how Christmas was tainted — the year Angel went suicidal, the year her mother died, the year Spike had been kidnapped…. And here was a Christmas in the wrong universe, probably missing Dawn, and… missing him…. 

   He supposed he  _ could _ escape for one night. Claim he wanted a real hunt, use the trip to pick up the blood extraction without sending a minion — it was the minions who would bring back the live victims to kill. Yeah, that could work. But could he unblock his soul enough to actually be there for her? After having to take on Harmony he’d convinced himself he didn’t deserve Buffy any longer. But did she deserve to have that dropped on her? At Christmas, no less? Christmas had been a big deal when Spike was growing up, Victorian Christmas was the center of the year. Even when evil, he’d indulged, making sure to fetch Drusilla a tree most years. (The way she’d decorated it didn’t bear thinking on, but the gesture was the same.) 

   “Christmas,” Spike said. “Yeah. All right. Tell her to wait for me at her mum’s, Christmas Eve. I’ll show. Have the pig blood on standby.” He looked up at Angel. “I haven’t been eating much.”

   Angel swallowed, a combination of disgust and longing in his eyes. “I’ll tell her. She’ll be really glad to see you.”

   Spike closed his eyes. He was longing to see Buffy.

   He dreaded her seeing him.

   A few minutes later an avenging Angel attempted to break through the ranks of minions in the winery, the ones in the basement killing their victims, and the ones in the tunnel, digging slowly but surely toward the scythe. Spike ran after him and performed an elaborate pantomime, finally running Angel off with a curse. He turned back to the minions. If he was really being the Big Bad, this is where he’d have told the buggers off for not having anyone on watch. Instead he just told them time was running out, and they had to work faster. They groaned.

   Two of the victims had been killed during the battle. Spike grabbed the last one and drained him quickly, and gently, claiming the fight had made him thirsty. Hot human blood rushed through his body, making it clench with exquisite pleasure. His minions looked on with disappointment, their treat — as was only right, of course — usurped by their master. They still didn’t like it any.

   Spike let the drained corpse fall to the floor and — no! Lock it down! — felt nothing about it. “Get back to work, people,” he snapped, and sauntered back upstairs.

   “Oh, Spike,” said Harmony as he came into the room. “Look at you, all big, buff Blondie Bear...! Come on, let me clean you up.”

   She washed him with a damp towel, and oiled his bruises with her massage oils, and then did whatever she wanted with him, because he let her. The Big Bad lay down on his satin shrouded bed and let it all happen.

    He was doing his best not to think.

 


	26. Chapter 26

 

   “I’m gonna have to go for a few days,” Angel said.

   “Huh?” Faith’s mouth was full of the burger Angel had brought her. It was hot, thank god! Hot food had been an impossibility, unless she was lucky enough to meet up with Angel in the sewers. She had been living on spam and jerky, granola bars and juice boxes. Angel made sure to supply her with all food groups, but nothing perishable — he couldn’t know which cache she would be able to get to at any given time — and nothing hot. Also, sometimes the caches were found or stolen or claimed by rats. She often just went hungry rather than risk going for one. It was wearing on her. “You’re leaving? It’s Christmas, like, what, the day after tomorrow? What time is it?”

   “After midnight, it’s technically Christmas eve, now. That’s why I’m going,” Angel said.

   “Where are you going?”

   “LA. I have to meet with someone. It’s important.”

   “Now?” Faith put down the burger. “Who are you going to meet?”

   “Uh... Jenny... um. Jenny suggested that I go talk to her grandmother. Her great grandmother.”

   Faith stared. “You’re gonna go talk to the gypsies?”

   “Uh... turns out Jenny says they prefer Romani,” he said. He looked nervous. “There’s, uh, there’s a Roma tradition of asking forgiveness at Christmas. She apologized for lying to me, and said that was why. I forgave her, and then said I wished I could apologize for what’s happened to her family. For what I did.... She said the person to apologize to would be the GrandJanna, so....” He shrugged.

   Angel had told Faith, during one of their visits, that Jenny had moved into the mansion. He’d told her about Jenny being the descendant of that clan that cursed him. He had yet to tell her that his soul could detach. Faith had been waiting and waiting, they’d met up a bunch of times since she’d had that smoke with Spike after the raid — god, that seemed so long ago, now. She’d expected him to tell her. He still hadn’t.

   “So you’re going to go see the little sister of that girl you ate?”

   “Yeah.”

   “Sounds like fun. You know, like gouging out your eyes and putting them on little toothpicks.”

   Angel looked down. “You know, Faith... there was a time I would have found that hilarious.”

   “I know,” Faith said. “I found a plate of them in the fridge of the last apartment I broke into.”

   Angle looked up. “I’m sorry.”

   “I needed water,” she said. “It was daylight, didn’t dare risk the sewers. Why is the deputy mayor keeping the water and electricity up, anyway?”

   “Deputy mayor isn’t evil like Wilkins was, but he’s a coward,” Angel said. “The Master sent a delegation headed by some guy called Trick. Gave him an ultimatum. He leaves the demon district functional, and he doesn’t get hunted down, his house burned up, and his lungs ripped out. He said that sounded fair.”

   Faith sighed.

   “Were you hoping they’d turn the utilities off?”

   “I was hoping they’d do something,” she said. “Anything.”

   Angel’s face was concerned. “Hey. You doing all right?”

   “Five by five,” they both said in unison, and when Faith realized he’d said it with her, she rolled her eyes.

   “Now tell me the truth,” he said.

   She looked down. She didn’t like to admit it. But it was Angel, and he was the only lifeline she had, for everything. “It’s getting hard,” she confessed. “I think they suspect I’m here. Or that someone’s here, anyway. More and more of the caches are getting raided, and sometimes there seems to be a search party or something at night. The sewers aren’t always safe anymore, and during the day... they have demons that aren’t vampires wandering around. I dread cloudy days. The vampires aren’t as careful then, and they leave windows open....”

   “We’ll have to change locations for the drop offs again.”

   “That’s only going to keep them off my scent for so long,” Faith said. “I’m on hyper alert all the time, and I....” She cringed. “I’m getting really tired.”

   No. No, no, she would not break down. No.

   Yeah, right, all the good intentions in the world didn’t always control that. She was crying. Angel reached out a hand and touched her arm. Faith took it upon herself to steal a hug, and Angel pulled away almost instantly.

   Faith hit him. It wasn’t very hard, but she meant it. “Stop it! I’m not after that!” She grabbed him and snuggled up into his chest, because dammit, this was her snuggly vampire, and she needed a god damned hug.

   “Faith....” he said softly.

   “You can just tell me, you know,” she said. “You don’t have to get all squirrelly and refuse to touch me. I know you can’t.”

   “I....”

   “Spike told me,” she said. “About the clause on the curse.”

   “Spike knows?” Angel asked. Then he sighed. “Yeah, I guess he does.” He put his arm around Faith finally.

   “I guess this means we couldn’t ever,” she said. “Even if you wanted.”

   Angel moved his head a little. “Is that what you...?”

   She shrugged. “Hadn’t decided. Would have been nice, though. Don’t like having my options stolen.”

   “It wasn’t stolen,” Angel said. “I guess... it just wasn’t ever an option.”

   Faith looked up a bit. “Did you want it to be?”

   He looked utterly lost. “I... I don’t think... I ever really understood any of it. Love or good or happiness. What is that supposed to be, anyway? Buffy said something about Christmas... her own Christmas. That if I had done something... evil… to her, it could have made me lose my soul. This whole time, maybe if I’d done something truly evil and managed not to feel guilty about it.... What if that had happened, and I’d found happiness that way?” He shook his head. “I just don’t understand it.”

   “I don’t think those gypsies thought the curse out real well, if you ask me.”

   “It was supposed to be revenge,” Angel said. “I think I was supposed to die after. Kill myself or something, because of the guilt.”

   “Why didn’t you?”

   He looked even more lost. “I didn’t want to. It was like... I’d become friends with the pain of it.” He tilted his head back. “No. That’s what I always do. I did the same thing when I lost Buffy, just gathered the pain to me and nurtured it or something. I didn’t... I didn’t want to lose it.”

   “The soul?”

   “The pain.”

   Faith considered this. It was a strange way of feeling, but it made sense. What else did he have but his pain? “But is that the curse, or is it you?”

   “I don’t know.”

   “Were you like that before the soul?”

   “Vampires don’t feel pain quite the same way, I don’t think. Pain is part of what we are, anyway. We’re bred from it. We sort of like it… but the soul doesn’t. I don’t know.”

   “What about before you were turned? Did you cling to it then?”

   Angel paused. “I think... I think maybe I did,” he confessed. “I know I clung to resentment of my da. That was pain, in a way....” He grunted. “God, how can you always do this? No one else can get me to talk like this.” 

   Faith shrugged. “I don’t know.”

   Angel squeezed her shoulders lightly and nuzzled at her hair. It felt really good, Faith hadn’t felt safe in ages. It was better here with Angel. For this brief moment, she wasn’t alone. She snuggled in closer, and yawned.

   “How did I suddenly become everyone’s go-to teddy bear?” Angel mused suddenly. “You, Cordy, Buffy. Even Spike.”

   “You’ve started actually  _ being _ good, Angel, not just playing it,” Faith said. “I’ve been watching you. With your cat upstairs and, well, me, you were sort of... forced into it. When Buffy came back, you wanted to go evil again, and then you decided against it that night with the cookies.”

   “Oh, did I?”

   “Yeah.” She rolled over and sort of lay against his chest. She grabbed her burger and went back to munching on it, still cradled in his arms.

   “Sure that might not have something to do with knowing I was a smile away from a murder spree for the last century?”

   “I think it’s more than just a smile. If it was, I’ve seen you lose your soul, oh, at least four whole times since I’ve moved in.”

   Angel laughed.

   “Ooh, five!” Faith said. “Anyway, if it bugs you, you should do something about it.”

   “What? Like... wear a hair shirt and... self flagellation?”

   “That sounds like such a waste, when you have me around to flagellate you. You know, I had this one guy, who used to like me to take a freakin’ bullwhip, and—”

   “Faith,” Angel stopped her.

   She knew he hated that. She was pretty young to have had those kinds of experiences, anyway. But she’d been far, far too young when she’d first been exposed to that kind of thing in the first place. Family of fucking drunks. Her life had been saved when her watcher found her.... Sort of.

   “I just mean, maybe you should try and get your soul stuck on better. Like Spike’s.”

   “I don’t think they sell soul glue down at the Black Market.”

   “Well, no, but... I mean, you’re gonna go talk to the gypsies, right?” Faith said with her mouth full. “Maybe they could do something better for you. Maybe give you some kind of less wacked out escape clause, like... you can only lose your soul on the fourth Wednesday after Pentecost if it falls on a Friday, or... or only if you stand naked in the sunlight on the top of Mt. Everest while whistling the long version of Hey Jude or something. Something you couldn’t ever do.”

   “I... don’t know if they can do that.”

   “You could ask,” Faith said.

   “That isn’t why I want to apologize. Kind of... defeats the purpose, doesn’t it? I’m really sorry, now give me something.”

   “I don’t think it’s like that.”

   Angel shook his head. “Buffy said her Angel still has the escape clause. That must mean it’s impossible.”

   Faith looked up at him, incredulous. “How does that follow?”

   “Huh?”

   “Maybe he just never asked. If Spike can do it, you can. I’ve been thinking about it, it’s gotta be possible. If the gypsies won’t do it, maybe you can do it yourself. Spike says he fought for his. Why don’t you fight for yours?”

   Angel was very still for a long moment. So still he’d stopped breathing, which was kind of weird, and kind of nice, and kind of funny. Faith wanted to say something about it, but the burger had dropped out of her mouth, and the idea of making herself talk sounded insane, because her eyes were closing, and her body knew she was safe for the first time in weeks. Safe in Angel’s arms....

   “Is it right to do that, though?” Angel finally asked. “The soul is a punishment. I  _ should _ feel guilt, I  _ should _ be afraid to put a foot wrong, it shouldn’t be... something....” He looked down, and then stopped. Faith had fallen asleep.

   God, she looked young, asleep like that. He wasn’t particularly comfortable, but she was, and she needed the rest, and he was there awake to stand guard. He smiled down at her (Look at that. Six) and brushed the hair out of her face. He took the last few bites of burger out of her hand and popped them into his mouth, so the scent wouldn’t draw rats or vampires. Bland, but not bad. He leaned back and gazed at her. Being with her did make him happy.

   And Cordelia made him happy, and friendship made him happy, and if he wanted to be unhappy that would mean he couldn’t be there for them. Couldn’t be here for her. What he really should do is leave.... But that would mean abandoning her.

_   He never did it, _ Angel mused. That other Angel. He had never seen to it that his friends were safe by getting his soul fixed like Spike’s. He had abandoned Buffy rather than try to fix it. And she actually had needed someone, and it was only sheer luck that Spike had filled that void. Maybe it wasn’t a selfish impulse. Maybe it was more selfish to cling to the pain. Like clinging to his grief for Buffy, or clinging to his anger at his da, clinging to his misery was maybe just him being selfish.

   That wasn’t why he wanted to apologize to the GrandJanna. But maybe... maybe he should ask if there was something she could do to make the curse more permanent. The soul wasn’t really for himself, after all.

   It was for everyone else.

 

***

 

   “I don’t like this,” said Trick’s chief minion — or was it his chief minion’s brother? One of the Gorch brothers, anyway — with a snarl. “Why do we have to go hunting for that bratty kid? It’s not like he can’t hunt himself. Doesn’t he have like super secret powers or something?”

   “Hey. Not my place to try and judge the decisions of the Master,” Trick said, filing his nails. “I tried to tell him I could get a sweet Filipino or a whole passel of undocumented Mexicans delivered right to his door, but he said he wanted local blood, so local blood it is.”

   “But we’re not hunting for the Master,” said the other Gorch brother.

   “The Master, his Anointed scion, his goddamned dog, it don’t matter to me what he’s wanting it for,” Trick said. “Did you get a line on some, or didn’t you?”

   “Yeah, we got a line,” said Gorch — that one had to be Lyle. Lyle was the one who wasn’t quite so much of an idiot.

   “It’s that one!” said his brother, pointing to a house on the corner. “That one. That one’s got something!”

   “Okay, okay,” Trick said, smoothing back his hair. “You... uh, Tector. You stand by the back. Lyle, you and the others make the line on the front. Remember, we’re after actually getting them to come out this time. Crispy critters ain’t exactly on the Master’s menu, if you hear what I’m saying.”

   Fire. It was a well tested solution for the way the people had become so savvy in this town. If it wasn’t for the Master and his grand plans for world domination and that shit, Trick would have moved on down the road and picked up in a less militarized burg. But as it was, he had a sweet set up safe in the demon district, a couple of pretty fledges of his own to toy with, and all the blood he could drink. The quality was going downhill as the area got hunted out, and yeah, he had to kowtow to the Master’s random little whims, but it wasn’t a bad neighborhood to settle down in.

   But those damn whims could get really annoying sometimes. Like when the Master had delusions of slayer-killing, like that new boy Spike, or when he had to go fetch munchies for the Master’s anointed little pet. Damn kids, picky damn eaters.

   “Keep the smoke down! Remember, we’re trying to burn them out, not smoke them to death! God damn waste of time if they die in there.”

   The only problem with setting the house on fire was that it took a long damn time. When the fire trucks were still running you could get a decent snack from them while you were waiting, but since they’d stopped running after sundown, watching the fire was the only thing to do. Trick nursed a bottle of beer and flipped through a magazine as he perched on a lawn chair in the front yard, the inferno roaring before him. Huh. Maxim said there was some dude taking the rich on human-hunting safaris. Man, now  _ that _ was a business he had to see if he could break into one day....

   “Ow!” Something hit him in the head. Something hard. It fell into his lap, and Trick picked it up. The little label on the side stung him. “Ow!” There was a cross on the label.  _ Holy Water _ it read.

   “What the...?” He looked up. The family in question had made it to the roof, and their target in particular was standing at the edge, throwing things. “Hey there, little girl!” Trick called up to her. “You don’t need to be doing that, we’re not planning to hurt you!”

   The girl threw another bottle of holy water at him, and this one broke.

   “God dammit,” he muttered, shaking it off. That stuff was annoying more than anything else. He poured his beer over his skin to dilute it before it could cause a nasty burn, and glared up at the family. “You know, you’re gonna pay for that, baby,” he said. “I can rip you right open and feast on your liver!”

   “I-I thought we needed to bring the kid back to the Anointed One,” said the dumbest Gorch brother.

   Trick rolled his eyes at him. “Yes, we do. But that don’t mean I can’t make the trip over very very painful.” Then he smiled. “Besides. They just made this whole job much, much easier.” He clapped his hands, and suddenly a sweet little projectile hurtled through the air, stabbing the man of the house through the stomach.

   “No! Daddy!” the little girl cried, and Lyle Gorch pulled on the rope attached to the harpoon, dragging the screaming man away from his screaming woman-folk. Some one of the other minions threw rocks. They missed, but the lady backed away anyway, and then — about time! — the inferno seemed to be doing its job, because the roof was weak, and she fell into the burning house.

   Trick assessed the building, the side which wasn’t burning yet, and decided it was time to take a few risks himself. He propped up the painting ladder he’d had ready — it was surprising how many humans would go for roofs or windows when the fire started properly licking at their heels. “Come on down, princess,” he called up to the girl. “I promise you, this is your only chance. Stay up there and burn to death, or come down here. We’ll let you take care of your daddy!”

   Her daddy was, of course, currently being eaten alive behind the van, but the pretty little thing didn’t need to know that.

   “Come on, sugar. I’ll give you a lollipop.”

    No, he didn’t think she bought it, but she cautiously approached the ladder, anyway. The smell of fear rolled off her in waves, and Trick graciously stepped back away from the ladder, because why make it look like he was just waiting for her?

   She climbed down halfway, and then, to his astonishment, twisted, and jumped behind it, and landed on the Gorch brother who had been hiding behind the yew bush. A brief scuffle ensued, and Trick heard a yell. He expected he was going to have to punish the goddamn idiot for killing their target, but when he caught up to the kid, he was just in time to see Gorch vanish into dust. She’d used the tree, the damn living bush. The broken branch she’d used sprang up as the dust took the minion.

   “Tector!” Lyle shouted from his tree. He jumped down and grabbed the little girl out of Trick’s grip. “She killed my brother!”

   “Your brother was an idiot,” Trick said lightly. “Good riddance!”

   “Oh, I’m gonna kill you so hard!” Lyle shouted, shaking the girl. “I’m gonna kill you twice! Three times.  _ Four  _ times! I’m gonna kill you and kill you, and then I’m going to rip your head off, and then I’m gonna kill you again!”

   “You’re gonna do nothin’ of the kind,” Trick said, snatching the child back. “I’m gonna deliver her to the Master like he wanted.” Trick sighed. There was something very nostalgic about this whole thing, having to kowtow to some white Master, bringing him his victuals. Still. It paid okay. “Take your vengeance out on her daddy, if you really got to get some pain out of her.” A tortured scream echoed from the burning house. “Or see if you can drag her mama out of that,” he laughed.

   He half wondered if Gorch would actually do it. The fella was dumb enough. But his face just twisted in misery, and he did go to take his vengeance out on the man. A second later a sickening thump told Trick that the little girl’s father was no longer in this world. Idiot. Didn’t he know the pain ended when the fella died?

   Gorch didn’t seem to realize this, as the sounds of bruising meat and splintering bone came from behind the van. “Just hurry up and kill me!” the girl snapped at Trick, defiant. She was crying, but Trick couldn’t be bothered.

   “Oh, shut up, girly, I ain’t gonna kill you.”

   “You... you’re not?” She didn’t sound hopeful.

   “Hell, no. You, Little Orphan Annie, are Christmas dinner for the Master. Or one of his favorites, anyway.”

   “My name’s not Annie,” the girl muttered.

   “Annie, Sammie, it’s all the same to me,” Trick said, dragging her into the van and strapping her down with duct tape. He didn’t even really hear when she did say what her name actually was.

   “It’s Amanda.”

 


	27. Chapter 27

 

   “So, when are you going to tell the others?” Xander asked, excited.

   “Um... we hadn’t really... uh....” For once it was Willow who was tongue tied.

   “Coming out is a very personal thing, Xander,” Tara said. “We... uh, well, Willow, that is. She decided she couldn’t keep it from you anymore, but she-she’s....”

   “I don’t know if I’m ready yet,” Willow said, blushing. “I mean it’s still early early days, and... um....”

   “I get it,” Xander said. “Total hush-hush.” He grinned with relief. He had no idea why he was so damn happy, but he was.

   Actually he  _ did _ know why. He’d been terribly afraid he’d lost Willow. After the whole raid fiasco he and Willow had spent a few days being all cuddly, but there had been no interest on either part in resuming the smooches. Which he was both happy about, and frustrated by, because dammit, he’d lost Cordelia over it. But there had been a different feel between him and Willow after that, and he hadn’t liked it. Then Tara had started tutoring the magic club, and Willow had thrown herself head first into magic, and Xander had been convinced he’d just lost his best friend. She had chosen Tara as her study-buddy, and he’d been afraid she’d picked her as her new best friend, too. If it was just a girlfriend, he could totally get that. A girlfriend wasn’t the same as a best friend.

   “I think your mom would love it,” he said. “You know she’s all woman power and stuff. Don’t know about your dad.”

   “I don’t know about my dad, either,” Willow said. “He might be okay with it. He might wig out. He might actually wish I’d started dating a nice Jewish girl, instead. I mean, Charlie Brown Christmas is bad enough, I didn’t dare tell him I was celebrating the Solstice with Tara.”

   “Well, I’m sure the two of you could light the Menorah with magic or something, and—”

   “That’s not what magic is for,” Tara said sharply.

   Xander was startled. “Um....”

   “It’s okay, Tara, he just doesn’t know,” Willow said.

   “Sorry,” Xander said.

   “N-no,” Tara said softly. “I’m sorry, I-I-I d-didn’t....”

   “No, it’s okay!” Willow said. “Here, let me make us some more tea.” She stood up and bustled into the corner of Tara’s dorm room, playing with the hot pot.

   “I... really didn’t mean to say anything wrong,” Xander said quietly to Tara. “I really don’t understand this magic stuff.”

   “Buffy said there are d-divinations that-that Willow is... um... very... very powerful,” Tara said. “I’m trying to contain her magics. That’s why I was called in. Um... do....” She stopped and glanced over at Willow. “Do you think starting a re-relationship with her is... is wrong?”

   Xander’s mouth opened, but it took him a minute to think of what to say. “I... don’t know,” he finally managed. “I don’t think so. It’s not as if it’s you were really her teacher, and you’re only, what, ten months older. There are student tutors. And it was Buffy who called you in, and Buffy would know if you were a bad influence or something. She’s got this whole other-world vision of the future, and everything.”

   “Other... other world?” Tara asked.

   Willow came back with the tea.

   “Buffy comes from another world?” Tara asked. “Is that why her aura shimmers like that?”

   “Her aura shimmers?”

   Tara nodded. “I thought it was just because she was the Slayer. She’s from a different dimension?”

   “Mm-hm,” Willow said. She and Xander told Tara about the failed spell.

   Tara stared at Willow wide-eyed when the story was through. “You were trying to do a spiritual line empowerment spell, and ripped a hole through dimensions?”

   Willow looked sheepish, and she nodded.

   “That shouldn’t have been possible,” Tara said.

   “I know.”

   “No, you don’t get it. That really shouldn’t have been possible. Power aside, that’s not strength, that’s something....” She stood up, her hands over her mouth and nose, her face pale. “That’s something else.”

   “Is it something dangerous?” Willow asked, concerned now.

   “I... I don’t know,” Tara said. She frowned at Willow. “Buffy died here, right? That’s what you’re telling me, that there was a Buffy who lived in this universe, and she died?”

   “Yeah.”

   Tara frowned. “What if she was needed here? What if destiny is in play, and for some reason every universe needs a Buffy?”

   “Why would she be needed, rather than any other slayer?” Xander asked. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, Buffy’s awesome, but Kendra could kick some ass, and Faith’s even badder.”

   “I don’t know,” Tara said. “But I need to talk to Buffy, and we need everybody to be honest. Completely honest. We all need to come out of the closet.” She looked over at Willow. “Yeah, that means about us, too. We need to tell at least her, so she can know if we’re doing something wrong.”

   “Being with you isn’t wrong,” Willow said. “It’s the most right thing I’ve ever righted.”

   Tara looked to Xander. “What do you think?”

   “I think if you’re happy, then I’m happy,” Xander said. “But you two know the magic stuffs.”

   “We still haven’t done my Ordeal yet,” Willow said. “Maybe once we do, we’ll have some more answers? Maybe the magic knew what it was doing, when I didn’t?”

   Tara looked down. Xander didn’t know her very well, but he knew what was needed. “Scooby meeting, Christmas Day,” he said. “And that means you too, Tara. I’ll call everyone.”

   “Everyone?” Willow asked. “You mean… everyone, everyone?”

   Xander took a deep breath. That would mean Cordelia… he dreaded having to call her, she wouldn’t answer the phone, he knew…. “Yeah. Everyone,” he said. He’d figure something out. “We need a meeting anyway, aren’t you ready with Buffy’s little Christmas present for the Watcher’s Council?”

   “It goes live tonight,” Willow said. “Just a bit more coding. Thanks for all the content.”

   “That was mostly Giles, I just translated it down to human language. But we should tell Buffy about it in person. And right now, I think we should go to your cafeteria, because I heard they had mass produced turkey and cranberry sauce, and I would like to gorge myself before the Charlie Brown Christmas special.”

   They headed off to the campus cafeteria. Xander and Willow measured their guest tickets, while Tara got out her school ID, and they loaded up trays with industrial turkey and oversalted stuffing. They went to sit down, and... Xander froze so suddenly that Willow nearly ran straight into him.

   It was Cordelia and an incredibly well maintained graduate student, making out like there was no tomorrow in the middle of the god damned cafeteria. Xander felt as if someone had reached through his rib cage and grabbed at his esophagus. Either that or his heart had stopped.... 

   “Is something wrong?” Tara asked, confused.

   “That’s Cordelia,” Willow whispered, not quietly enough.

   “Oh....” Tara had only seen Cordelia maybe once, from a distance, as far as Xander knew. “Well, someone should probably stop them,” Tara went on. “Public displays of affection aren’t entirely against school policy, but they usually demand a certain level of, uh... p-propriety?”

   “I can do that,” Xander said suddenly, hearing the voice come out of his chest without his agreeing to it. “I can absolutely stop them.”

   “Xander, no!” Willow called after him, but it was a bit late for that. Xander was marching across the cafeteria, and... where did his tray get to? Had he passed it off to Willow? Shoved it onto a table? Flat dropped it? He couldn’t remember, and it didn’t really matter, because dammit, he was not going to stand by and watch... this!

   Cordelia had actually stopped the high intensity make-out session at Willow’s voice, and looked up, a little flushed, possibly slightly embarrassed, but Xander couldn’t tell. She quietly climbed off her grad student and sat properly in the seat beside him. “Hello, Xander,” she said calmly. “Fancy meeting you here.”

   “I didn’t expect to see you here. Like this. At four in the afternoon. Like this.”

   Cordelia had a smile on her face that he didn’t like. No, no, that was a smirk, that was positively a  _ smirk _ on her face. “I didn’t expect to see you here either, Xander. In case you got lost, I think I should let you know, this is a college campus.”

   “I know where I am.”

   “Oh? I’m shocked,” she said, turning her smirk knowingly to her companion. “I didn’t think UC Sunnydale accepted the test scores from Piddling Puppy Obedience Schools, but I suppose community college will take anyone these days.”

   There was a cruel tic in the corner of his jaw as he stared at Cordy, her hair mussed, her cheeks flushed. He wanted to grab her and shout at her. That was how they’d started dating, after all, the power of the circumstance rushing through both of them, surging into passion as they shouted rudely at each other in the basement of Kendra’s watcher, penned in by some demonic assassin, terrified, furious, really really horny. There were no demons here, there was only himself, and he couldn’t make himself turn away.

   “So you must be Riley,” Xander heard himself say.

   “Um. Yeah, hi,” Riley said, half standing up to reach out for Xander’s hand. Xander’s own body betrayed him by responding to the gesture, but then, the damn thing had betrayed him by coming over here in the first place. “Always nice to meet a friend of Cordy’s.”

   “Oh, he’s not my friend,” Cordelia said. “He’s an unsightly parasite that once infected my airspace.”

   “Is that what you’re calling what’s inside your skull these days?” Xander retorted.

   “I think that what’s—”

   “I don’t think I much like you talking to a woman like that, Mr... Xander,” Riley said quietly, cutting off whatever Cordy was going to say.  

   Xander turned to Riley. “Oh, really? And you think you have the right to tell me what I can and can’t say to my ex?”

   Riley stood up, intimidating, and... damn, but he was really just ridiculously tall. At least half a head taller than him, and the dude worked out. For half a second, Xander totally got where both Willow and Cordy were coming from, in their different ways. “Yeah, you know. I really think I do.”

   “Come on, Xander,” Willow suddenly said, coming up from behind him. “We have turkey to eat.”

   “We?” Xander looked from Willow, to Tara, who was standing well back, holding his tray as well as her own.

   “Tara wants to eat on the terrace,” Willow said. “You know, over  _ there _ .” She tried to drag Xander away.

   “Trying to steal him away again, are you?” Cordelia said. “You know, you really should learn, Willow, to only steal things that have intrinsic worth.”

   “I didn’t steal anything,” Willow retorted. “Which you’d know if you’d deigned to listen to the hundreds of messages Xander tried to leave you, explaining the whole—”

   “Stalker level phone bombing is not romantic,” Cordelia snapped. “It’s creepy.”

   “Total misinterpretation of circumstances isn’t sensible, it’s stupid!” Xander snapped back. 

   Cordy changed position in her seat, crossing her legs with contempt. “And this is where the cast iron pot tries to blacken the copper kettle.”

   “Well, as a copper kettle, you certainly have plenty of glare.”

   “Indeed I do,” Cordy said. “Nice and shiny.”

   “Oh, like your nose?” Xander said, knowing just where to strike so it hurt. Cordy flinched. “Not to mention, I don’t really need to blacken much, with all those clogged pores. Did you forget how to moisturize, or does playing the whore just naturally make you break out?”

   “That’s it,” Riley said. He stood up and grabbed Xander by the collar. “I think you and I are going to have a little chat.”

   Xander tried to pull away, but Riley was too damn strong. People were staring, chairs were knocked over, Willow had dropped her tray when Riley had grabbed Xander away from her. 

   “Okay, that’s enough chest thumping,” Cordy said loudly. “Stop it.”

   Riley wasn’t listening.

   “I said stop!” She jumped forward and took Riley’s arm. The damn thing was cording with muscle, and Xander was already feeling a spot on his chest where there was likely going to be a bruise. What the hell did Riley plan on  _ doing _ with him outside? Damn, this guy was scary. “Riley, baby, I was done anyway. Why don’t we just go back to the frat house, and tell the guys the Christmas party is starting early, okay? We’ll go buy some beer. I’ll pay.”

   Riley looked torn. He wanted to listen to his girlfriend, but glared at Xander as if the promise of beer and titties wasn’t half as enthralling as the prospect of beating up on some high school kid who had insulted said girlfriend.

   “Go on,” Cordy said. “He’s harmless, we’ve been sniping at each other since elementary school.”

   “Why’d you ever date this guy?” Riley asked.

   She shrugged. “I needed someone who wasn’t going to back down in a fight with a vampire,” she said. “He’s too stupid to run.” She put her arm through Riley’s and he finally let Xander go.

   Riley went off with Cordelia, who didn’t once look back, and Xander watched them go. He knew, intellectually, that there was no way this guy was half as neanderthal as he had seemed in this exchange, but damn! He was still scared for her. He turned back to Willow, who was kneeling mournfully on the cafeteria floor, trying to sort out which parts of her turkey dinner were salvageable. He didn’t think much of it was. “You know what, take mine,” he said, taking his tray out of Tara’s hands. “I’m not that hungry anymore.”

   “Are you sure?” Willow asked. “I... I feel like I just ruined everything.”

   “Hey,” Xander said softly. “I kissed you, too.”

   Willow looked up, sniffling. “I didn’t mean for this to happen,” she said. “With you. With me. Not any of it.”

   Xander shrugged. “It is what it is.”

   “She  _ didn’t _ treat you well,” she pointed out.

   “Lets just... not talk about it,” Xander said, picking up Willow’s spilled tray.

   They ate out on the terrace, and a more awkward meal Xander had never had. Willow was still acting odd, overly loud when she spoke about pointedly non-threatening topics. Tara didn’t know Xander well, so she was still shy, and she seemed disturbed by the revelation that Buffy was from another, futuresque universe, and Xander knew he shouldn’t be harping about his ex, but he couldn’t help it. It all seemed so pointless! How had he turned into the bad guy here?

   It wasn’t right. He did have to talk this out with Cordelia, once and for all.

 

***

 

   “So are we going to talk this out?” Xander asked. “Or are you just going to slam another door in my face, or turn off the answering machine, or whatever you had in mind to cut me this time?”

   Cordelia glared. “Stalking me by my car isn’t going to make me take you back, Harris,” she snapped. “How long have you been lurking out here, waiting for me?”

   “You have a Christmas Eve cocktail party at your house with your dad’s boss every single year. I knew you had to be headed back to your place by seven.”

   “Shows what you know,” Cordy said. “This year, the party was at noon.” And she had escaped it to go see Riley, but her dad did expect her to be back around sundown, or she wouldn’t get whatever great present she’d been promised this year. 

   Her father liked Riley. A lot. A little too much, actually, which was why she hadn’t invited him to the Christmas Eve cocktail party. Whenever Riley came over, Cordelia was instantly abandoned while he and her father chatted in the den talking about basketball or something, and while she would have liked to join in — Cordy actually really liked sports — it seemed to stall the conversation when she tried to be a part of it. She wasn’t sure why that was. In any case, when the inevitable end came with the guy, she didn’t want her father disappointed. Better to just keep Riley separate from her real life as much as possible. He was a toy, a fantasy, and it was important to keep him that way.

   Unlike Xander, who was real life with a vengeance. A vengeance Cordy could feel flushing behind her cheeks as she looked at him. She’d spent hours muttering about Xander, cursing him, burning his photographs, musing on vengeance for his betrayal. She’d half hoped some demon would come from the ether and give her the chance to curse him properly, but none had appeared. No doubt too damn busy what with all the vampires running around. She’d half hoped for a vampire, but... no luck. Shame. Xander would have made one sexy vampire, and then she could legitimately get him staked.

   “Well, okay,” Xander said. “The party changed. It doesn’t mean you did. I still knew you’d be going home.”

   “Then you’ll know I’ll be going right now,” she said.

   Xander did not stand between her and her car door, something she’d been half afraid he’d try. But he did sit down on her hood and frown at her patiently. She opened her car door, and then glared at him, expecting him to get down, but he didn’t.

   “Cordy, why are you so mad?”

   “Why? Why am I so mad?” Cordelia stepped around the car door and glared at him. “Because you’re a lying, cheating piece of pre-chewed gum that got stuck to my shoe. Because you’re a hopeless, helpless, sniveling loser I should never have let anywhere near me. Because I was insane to ever get mixed up with you and your wacked out, mud-grubbing, nerd-obsessed, freakazoid, boyfriend stealing friends!”

   “I’m not dating Willow.”

   “Because even  _ she’s _ smart enough not to!” Cordy snapped.

   “So, you’re saying you were stupid?” Xander finally got off her car. “Is that what’s really bugging you? You feel like you made a mistake?”

   “Of course I made a mistake. I should never have lowered myself to even hang out with a lame-o like you!”

   Xander snapped his fingers and pointed at her. “There it is,” he said.

   “There _ what _ is?”

   “Why you’re so mad,” Xander said. “See, I’ve been trying to figure out it. Because Cordy, I know you. I’ve known you since I was seven. I’ve seen the neanderthals you dated before me, and I see Riley, and I see the kinds of shit you put up with from your quarterbacks and your first stringers and your awesome letter jacket jocks. And you know what? What I did? It was bad, and if you wanted to break up with me for it, fine. But it’s not worth this. This vitriol, this hatred, this... venge-porn in the god damned cafeteria.”

   “It... it wasn’t....” It was. She’d only climbed into Riley’s lap and started kissing him when she saw Xander coming in with Willow and that witch-tutor girl. Actually, the kissing had gone on kind of a long time, waiting for him to notice, and it had been getting kind of difficult to keep it up before she heard Willow try to stop him.

   She had desperately wanted that, though. Make him jealous. Make him sting with it. She’d gone after Angel for much the same reason. Yes, she liked Angel, but more than that, she’d thought the sight of making out with him in front of Xander would make his wormy little cheating heart wither with hurt as he watched. She had  _ planned _ it. That was the  _ plan _ . Hurt him. Hurt him like he’d hurt her. (And hadn’t they played this game a lot, the two of them? Even when they were kids?)

   “You don’t know what I’m doing,” Cordy snapped.

   “Yeah, I do. But I don’t think  _ you _ do. You want to talk about lowering yourself? Think about what you were just doing. You know this guy is bad news. You’re selling yourself for it anyway.”

   “I am not selling myself,” Cordy snapped. “I’m helping Buffy.”

   “You keep telling yourself that, Cordy, but you don’t know if this plan will work, and even if it will? That? What you were doing? That was over and above the call of duty.”

   Cordy rolled her eyes, staring at the darkening sky. “And it was  _ fun _ ,” she said. “He’s a hot guy with a great bod who happens to think I’m the cat’s meow. So.”

   “He doesn’t even know you,” Xander said. “And he’s a slimeball. Riley was just about to punch out a student who wasn’t threatening anyone. And you’re okay with that. And I know when you were dating Josh Holder he stole your car, and you still dated him for like a month after. And I know when you dated Harry Turnbow that he cheated on you with Harmony, and you still stayed friends with both of them. See, the thing is, Cordy, you’re not actually upset about what I did, because if that was the kind of thing to upset you, you’d be casting down vengeance on all those other jerks.”

   “So you want to be one of them, now? I thought you were better than them, Xander. That was the whole point. But you weren’t. You were just as low and cheap and sneaky as all of those assholes, and I shouldn’t have trusted you.”

   “Yeah,  _ maybe _ you thought I was better. Or maybe you thought I should be  _ grateful _ ,” Xander snapped. “You expected me to be perfect and fawning and all so filled with gratitude that you would deign to spend time with me, even while you called me lame to your friends, and insulted mine, and... and made me look like a goddamn fool in front of the whole fucking school!”

   Cordy flinched. “I... I thought you wouldn’t mind that.”

   “I might not have, if you’d asked me!” Xander flung his arm out. “That was the whole damn point, you never asked me. You want me on your court, to make  _ you _ look good, and you make me into a laughingstock.”

   “You were upset about that?”

   “No, that’s not the point!” Xander snapped. “That was just a symptom, it was the whole damn thing, from the very beginning, you made me feel like you were slumming it by being with me. Like you were so much better than I am.”

   “I _ was _ ,” Cordy snapped. “I am.”

   Xander scoffed. “I know what you are, Cordy. You’re a lying, insecure, small-minded little girl with delusions of grandeur and a bad attitude. You’re haughty, you’re petty, and you’re _ mean _ . But I looked past all of that. I saw through it, because somewhere....” He was shaking. He looked like he was almost crying as he gestured at the whole of her. “Somewhere underneath that make-up and that cruelty and those stupid uncomfortable designer outfits you wear there is a brilliant, generous, passionate, courageous, and very loving woman. When you let her out. But god, you keep her shackled.”

   He shook his head. “And I had to stand every single day and try to tell people what it was that I saw in you, when you didn’t let them see any of it. And when Willow goes pale because you decide to insult her, or when someone mentions that you were only being nice because you very clearly want something, I was... desperate to try and find a way to excuse it. But there is no  _ excuse _ for that, Cordy. You drive people into the dirt. You’ve made Willow cry in my arms for hours. For god’s sake, Jonathan said he wanted to commit suicide after some awful thing you said. When you’re cruel, it’s  _ real, _ Cordelia. It hurts people, and it  _ stays _ . Willow can still remember all the mean things you’ve said, they still come up when she’s feeling down on herself. She nearly stopped being my friend when she found out we were not-really-dating-because-you-wouldn’t-lower-yourself-to-that.”

   Cordy didn’t know what to say. Was that really what he thought of her? What they all thought of her?

   He wasn’t done. “Well, my parents aren’t rich, and no, I’m not perfect. But you’re not all that. I’ve had to excuse you,  _ so _ often. You hurt everyone around you unless they can do something to make you stronger. You’re a monster.” He was crying now. “Or you can be. And I loved you in spite of all that. Because I saw someone inside worthy of it. And okay, yeah, it ate at me. And okay, yeah, I shouldn’t have kissed Willow. I shouldn’t have taken comfort in my best friend, when I was struggling every single day with an arrogant princess who thought she was better than me, and  _ made sure I knew it. _ ” He shook his head. “You know what, Cordy? You weren’t the one slumming it. I was.”

   He turned to walk away.

   Cordy’s face was hot, she was trembling, she was... she didn’t know what to say. But she knew she couldn’t just let him walk away with the last word like that. She fell back on the obvious. “I didn’t cheat on you!” she called after him. 

   Xander whirled. “You let star quarterbacks smack you on the ass on the playing field. I’ve watched letter jacket jocks grabbing at your tits in the hallways. You think that doesn’t bug me?”

   “You think I  _ want _ those manimals groping at me?”

   “No, but you let it happen without complaint. And I also know that if I tried to stop them, you’d get mad at  _ me _ . Because they’re popular and I’m not. Am I right?” 

   He  _ was _ right, something that galled her. The one time Xander  _ had _ tried to stop a member of the swim team from grabbing at her at a beach party, she had gotten pissed at him for making a scene about it. She’d figured she was handling it, deflecting, staying in public rather than going off alone with the guy. Her mother had taught her to just let those things happen, within reason, because bitching about it just made you look bad. That was actually  _ why _ she liked Xander, because he wasn’t that kind of guy, and didn’t do that kind of shit.

   “And by the way,” he added, “what do you call those kisses you gave the homecoming king on that damn float?”

   Cordy flinched. “They... weren’t real, they were just....”

   “Just kisses,” Xander snapped. “Yeah. It was a damn kiss, Cordy. Okay, three. Three damn kisses with my best friend. Who, incidentally, is apparently a lesbian now, so really not much of a threat!” He started. “Shit. Don’t... uh... don’t spread that around, she’s not out yet, could you....” He sighed. “Why do I even bother, it’s you. Fuck.” He buried his head in his hand.

   Did he really think she’d out something like that about Willow? That she’d spread it around the school and make people tease her about something that personal...?

   Yeah, Cordy realized. She would. That was exactly the kind of information she would use as ammunition to undermine someone socially. Freaky lesbo, pervert dyke, lame nerd having to date girls because the boys wouldn’t have her. The fact that all of those phrases leapt so easily to mind spoke volumes. That was the whole point Xander was making.

   “I... I won’t tell anyone,” she promised.

   Xander looked up, hope in his goddamn puppy dog brown eyes.

   “R-Riley’s not... really real, you know,” she said for some reason, looking at the ground. “Buffy needed someone to... uh....” God, this was stupid. “I gotta get home,” she said, and she ducked behind the safety of her car door again.

   “There’s a Scooby meeting,” Xander said suddenly. “Tomorrow afternoon. You’re… working for Buffy, so. That means you, too.”

   Cordy hesitated. “Three o’clock?”

   “Yeah.”

   “Yeah. O-okay.” She closed the door and backed the car away, leaving Xander staring after her. As she glanced in the rearview mirror she could see him glumly walking away across the campus, probably to head back to Willow’s friend’s place again, since she knew he wouldn’t want to go home. He always wanted to avoid the sometimes violent family fights at his house on Christmas Eve. He looked really small in the mirror.

_    I know you, Cordelia. _

_    Somewhere underneath is a brilliant, generous, passionate, courageous, and very loving woman. _

_    You hurt everyone around you. _

_    You weren’t the one slumming it. I was. _

   Jerk. She would have preferred if he was like Riley, who wanted to use fists to hurt. Why on earth did he have to go and use... words?


	28. Chapter 28

  

   “I think it needs more lights,” Buffy said, surveying the tree. “Can we get more lights on it? Spike likes things that glow.”

   “Buffy, we have all the lights we have already on it,” Joyce said. “And it’s already decorated. The wires would show.”

   “I know. I just....” She arranged an ornament. “It’s Christmas Eve. I want everything to be perfect.”

   “Everything’s right as rain, Buffy,” Giles said, coming in with a cup of eggnog for her. “Here. Are you sure you don’t want something to eat?”

   “Nah, not yet.” She took a sip of the eggnog. “Um... you got any bourbon for this?” she asked.

   Joyce looked disapproving. “Well. Just a taste.”

   “Mom? I’ve been over twenty-one for a while now,” Buffy reminded her.

   Joyce looked confused, then chagrined, then shook her head. “Of course.” She went over to the sideboard and brought over the bottle Giles had brought with him, allowing Buffy to doctor her drink how she wanted. She wanted... rather a lot, Giles was startled to discover.

   “Is the turkey in the oven yet?” Buffy asked. “Did you put in the stuffing?”

   “Yes,” Joyce said. “It’s already baking, I put it in half an hour ago.”

   “Okay. Good. It’s just I want to make a full turkey dinner, with gravy. For Spike.” She rearranged the same ornament, back to where it had been.

   “It’s not as if he’s going to be eating the meal, is it?” Joyce asked absently, digging through a box of decorations.

   “He probably will. He likes spiced onions, and that’s basically stuffing. And he _loves_ turkey gravy. It’s the first food I gave him when he got off human blood.”

   “So, Spike actually eats human food?” Giles asked. “Not just a polite taste, he actually imbibes it and digests it, for sustenance?”

   “I think it’s for pleasure, more,” Buffy said, “since he still needs blood, but yeah. And the gravy has blood in it, so it kinda helped with the withdrawal, I think, though he didn’t say that at the time.” She smiled, surprisingly fondly. “‘Course he was still pretty evil, then. He didn’t even say thank you.”

   “So, wait a moment. Withdrawal?” Giles was fascinated. “So vampires will suffer withdrawal from human blood? As if it were an addiction?”

   “I think so,” Buffy said. “Sure looked like it whenever he had to get off it. Do you think if we move the tree over further from the wall it would shine more?”

   “The tree’s fine where it is.” Joyce pulled some glass icicles out of the ornament box. “Here, if we hang some more glass, maybe it will reflect?”

   “Oh, that could do it,” Buffy said, seizing on the icicles and arranging them carefully by the lights.

   “So, tell me more about this withdrawal,” Giles asked.

   “Rupert, honey, why don’t you go get one of your notebooks?” Joyce asked quietly. “Then you can write down any questions you have, and ask Buffy when she’s actually working?”

   Giles felt a little ashamed. “You’re right,” he said. He kissed Joyce’s temple. “I’ll ask later.”

   She _was_ right. He had to fetch a notebook. He was honestly fascinated by the unique knowledge of vampires Buffy had gained actually living with one. Several of these questions were the kinds of things the council told him they had no knowledge of, in the way that suggested he shouldn’t be asking. Some were the kinds of things they actually legitimately _had_ no knowledge of, and they had no way of finding out. And some of them were things that he had wanted or even tried to ask of Angel, and had gotten nowhere on. Angel was incredibly elusive when asked about the effects of human blood on a vampire, for instance. He seemed embarrassed about it, like a teenage boy would be embarrassed when asked about nocturnal emissions. Clearly Buffy already knew the answers to such questions, and she was willing to share them, and he was so eager to learn. But Joyce was absolutely correct. Now wasn’t the time.

   “Now, you shouldn’t expect him too early,” Buffy was telling Joyce. “He has to wait for the sun to set before he travels. Unless someone brings him in a van... or unless he’s doctored up one of the vans. He can doctor up a car, you know, with black paint and paper and things. He looks really cute all dolled up in his driving gear, with the sun goggles.... Anyway, you shouldn’t expect him too early. It’ll probably be well after sunset before he makes it all the way here.”

   Joyce looked to Giles. They both knew Buffy was talking herself down from expecting him at any second.

   “Here, Buffy,” Joyce said, handing Buffy another glass ornament. “Maybe near the angels?”

   “I took off the angels,” Buffy said. “Spike doesn’t like angels. Here, it’ll go by the reindeer.”

   Giles stopped himself from asking if the angel image was also painful, in the same way a cross could be. Which made him wonder if other trappings of Christianity also had a caustic effect on vampires. And for that matter, if the trappings of other religions, like a star of David or an Islamic crescent would also have an effect. And what about those symbols which were similar to a cross, like an Egyptian ankh? Did a Celtic cross with its sun circle in the center have the same effects as the straight edged version? Would a druidic sun symbol itself, which was basically a cross in a circle but without the longer lower bar, be the same?

   Notebook, he reminded himself. Put it in a notebook. He took off his glasses and cleaned them, itching to ask more questions. But Buffy was clearly itching herself. She drained her eggnog and frowned at the tree, fidgeting. “Is there any more glass?” she asked.

   “Um, maybe in this box,” Joyce said, opening up another tub. She handed it to Buffy, who sorted through red and green and gold for little glimmers of clear glass. “And how about this one?” she asked, holding up a crystalline bauble, the sort of bloody gaudy thing Liz Taylor might wear to the theatre.

   Buffy took one look at it, and her face went white. “Give me that,” she said. She plucked it out of Joyce’s hand, set it down on the coffee table, and smashed it with the heavy stone statuette Joyce had brought from her gallery. It was hollow, and it splintered easily, but she crushed it into powder anyway.

   It was such bizarre behavior that both Giles and Joyce were surprised. “Um....” Joyce said.

   Buffy looked up, as if she’d only just realized her actions were a little odd. “I don’t like crystals that shape,” she said distinctly. “And neither does Spike.”

   “All right,” Joyce said nervously. “How about we get some more eggnog? Rupert?”

   “Good idea,” he said quietly.

   They left Buffy alone, still rummaging through boxes looking for the perfect ornament. “Is this normal?” Joyce asked quietly when they got into the kitchen.

   “Breaking Christmas decorations? Not really....”

   “I don’t really mean that,” Joyce said. “I mean this... fixation with a vampire. Is this something all slayers do?”

   “Most vampires aren’t of a quality as either Spike or Angel,” Giles said. “And to be honest, most slayers don’t live long enough to achieve the depth of relationship that Buffy seems to have with anyone. I think Buffy’s the oldest slayer on record, according to her own accounts of her age.”

   Joyce looked troubled. “She’s told me some of what’s happened to her. You know I died. Did you know she did?”

   “Yes, she told me she was resuscitated in her world by Xander of all characters.”

   “No, not that one. She says she’s died on three separate occasions. All of them brought back. She said one of them was very traumatic for her. And Spike was there for her after that.”

   “She told you that?”

   “I asked her how she had ever gotten involved with a vampire. I... I met Angel. When Buffy was young, I thought he was her tutor.”

   “Not... exactly.”

   “Well, I didn’t know he was a vampire too, until all this happened.” She frowned. “It’s not... unnatural, is it?”

   “What do you mean?”

   “I mean, I know some of these vampires can... can look at you and make you want to do things. Like follow them into the demon district or....” She peered around the door frame at Buffy. “Or maybe date them?”

   “You’re speaking of being enthralled,” Giles said. “It is possible, though unlikely. It is a rare gift even among vampires. I myself know of only three with the power, the Master being one. I know Angel does not have it. With the amount of time Buffy has been apart from Spike, I suspect any enthrallment would have long since worn off by now.”

   “But she’s so....” She looked back out at Buffy again. Giles looked too. Buffy had refilled her eggnog glass with straight bourbon and was grimacing as she sipped it while surveying the tree again. “She’s in love with him,” she said.

   “Yes. I think she is.”

   “What if he doesn’t come?” Joyce asked. “Buffy would do this, with her father, she’d make sure the house was perfect, she’d change her clothes over and over again, and sometimes he just... wouldn’t come. He’d say he had to stay late at work, or he’d forget it was his weekend with her, and he just....” she grimaced. “I haven’t told Hank that Buffy’s here. Or that this Buffy is here. She hasn’t asked about him at all. I think he abandoned her in her world.”

   “That sounds likely.”

   “What if this Spike has done the same?”

   “From what I’ve seen of them, I don’t think that’s likely,” Giles said.

   “She thinks it is,” Joyce said.

   “What?”

   She shook her head. “Buffy only does this when she’s frightened. When she _knew_ her father was coming, she wouldn’t fuss like this. She’d be relaxed and helpful. It was only when she had that _doubt_....”

   She looked so worried. Giles put his arm around her and held her. “It’ll be all right.”

   “Ripper, what if he stands her up? I could always assure her that her father loved her, in his way. I don’t know how I can do that for a vampire.”

   Giles murmured something noncommittal and disingenuous, because he was right on the same page as Joyce. He didn’t know what he’d do, either. Except he was even more afraid of what would happen if Spike didn’t show.

   Joyce was afraid Buffy would suffer a broken heart. Giles was afraid Buffy might have to put a stake through Spike’s.

       

***

 

    _Someone really has to put a stake through this bugger’s heart,_ Spike found himself thinking. He had only stopped by to talk to the Master for a minute, planning to escape and go see Buffy, for the arranged Christmas Eve date. (How he was going to manage to be human enough for Buffy, he still hadn’t figured, but he was going to try. Maybe Buffy herself would help.) But before he left, he had had to go deal with the old blighter one more time so he could arrange for more extracted blood to take to the dig.

   Spike wished that taking the extracted blood made him feel better about feeding his evil minions, but every time he saw the extractor in action, it actually made him feel worse. The Master was not an industrialist, and he didn’t know human medicine. He knew how to kill. He did not know the best way to keep humans alive to be milked by this machine, so the number of victims who died in it was no less than the number of victims killed by the vampires in general. It was colder and more impersonal, and it tended to make the ones running the machines even more brutal and sadistic toward the victims in the pens, as if they were making up for not being able to bite and kill themselves. Not to mention, the machine wasn’t gentle. There was no way at all to make the thing kill kindly. Everyone who died in it died in impersonal agony. The Nazis had been nicer.

   This place reminded him a lot of Nazi Germany, actually. There was a mountain of corpses in the center of the district. The plan was to burn Sunnydale to the ground when the Master was finally through with it. “Once we’ve taken this town down to its bones,” the Master was saying. “In short, Colin, I couldn’t get you what you wanted for your Christmas present.”

   “But I _wanted_ one!” the Anointed One shouted. “I wanted an elf for Christmas!”

   The Master was looking disapprovingly at his hyper-powerful little fledge. “You shouldn’t be celebrating Christmas at all. It’s a disturbing human concept, a trapping of their religion. Not that I’m opposed to commercialism and dragging one’s relations out of their safe spaces for a ritual sacrifice, indeed, those concepts are positively demonic. But it’s the principle of the thing! Peace on earth. Good will towards—” he gagged.

   “Date’s wrong, anyhow,” Spike said quietly. “Jesus was probably born some time in spring.”

   The Master glared at him. “Not really the point, Spike,” he said. “I’m trying to teach Colin here the benefits of acceptance. He wanted an elf.”

   “How were you going to manage that?”

   “I offered to order him up a kid with Williams Syndrome from the internet,” Trick said absently as he leaned against the wall. His red silk suit glimmered in the torchlight. He made a demonic looking Santa. “They call those kids elfin.”

   “Hush!” the Master said. “This is a lesson in taking what you can get. And Colin, I already acquiesced to getting you a... gift for the dead of winter. But the child is local. We need to clear this town out before we can move the army on to a new one.”

   Spike was concerned. “Where were you planning on going?”

   “I was thinking of finding another hellmouth, until the army is full a million strong. Maybe Cleveland? Anyway, here you are, Colin,” the Master said. “Trick?”

   A million. A million vampires. Spike hadn’t asked how many minions the Master had already created, but he knew it was nearing a thousand just here in the area. Had he already branched out and created other strongholds? God, they had to end this. They _had_ to end this. It was worth almost any pain to stop this cancer in the world before it spread. To that end Spike knew he had already gone past what he could accept — he could accept none of this, that was the whole point. He had gone past what he could bear — he was already staggering under the burden of guilt. He had gone past what he could forgive himself for — there was no forgiveness that he or anyone could grant him which would erase the things he had done already. Now he was just working on what he could live with.

   And as the Master had Trick bring in Colin’s Christmas present, Spike realized he had crossed that line. As the child was dragged past him, struggling in her bonds, he knew for a fact he could not live if he let this happen.

   The girl was about eleven with a long face, an expressive mouth, and haunted blue eyes that glanced at him beseechingly as she was dragged forward to be the Anointed One’s dinner. If it had been just a random child, Spike might have... well, no, he wouldn’t have assuaged his conscience, it would have been abominable, but he might have walked away and let it happen with his mind fixed on the end goal of ultimately stopping this terrible practice.

   Or maybe he wouldn’t. He liked to think he would have stood on his morals whether he’d recognized the child or not. But he did recognize her. She was younger, but her face was unmistakable. Her name was Amanda, and she was a potential slayer, and she was one of the ones he had failed to save at the final battle of Sunnydale.

   Fifteen at the time, her wide eyed corpse had stared at him accusingly as the fire burned his soul out of his body, taking Sunnydale and the hellmouth itself with it into a hollow crater. Her ashes and his both rested together in the center of that destruction, and unlike him, Amanda’s soul had not been resurrected into any kind of replicated form. This child’s counterpart had died on his watch, her life snuffed out by a Turok-Han before his eyes. He could not, _could not_ stand back and fail her again. Not this one. Not this time.

   “I want her,” he said quickly. He jumped forward and grabbed the girl’s arm.

   Trick, Colin, the Master, and the idiot minion with the cowboy hat — oh, god, was that one of the Gorch brothers? — all stared at him in bemusement. “You... want her?” the Master said.

   “Yeah,” Spike said, trying to make himself as nonchalant as possible. “She smells tasty.”

   The Master was gazing at him with his yellow eyes narrowed. “Now this surprises me, Spike. You’ve been feeding off pain and wretchedness since you got here. You’d almost think that soul had made you soft.”

   Spike dragged Amanda out of Gorch’s arms with a low growl in his throat. He vamped up as he did it. It was safer that way. This was going to be a dominance play such as he had never played before, and he knew it might see him dusted. “I’m just picky about what I eat,” Spike said. “And you already know it.”

   “But you promised her to me!” the Anointed One whined, tugging at the Master’s skirts.

   “Shut up,” the Master snapped. “Your elders are talking.”

   “But I _wanted_ her! She was supposed to be _mine!_ Mine, mine, mine, mine—”

   Spike hit the brat, and he went sailing across the chamber. He picked himself up from the ground and glared at Spike. “I hate you!”

   “Spike!” The Master seemed almost amused. “Come, Colin has his flaws, but....”

   “I know you put a lot of effort into the brat, but aren’t you sick of him yet? You should knock the kid onto his arse more regular. I know how to cane a boy proper when he gets out of line, you shouldn’t let him walk on you like that.”

   “My children are often willful,” the Master conceded. “Such as yourself. What makes you think you deserve Colin’s gift?”

   “Well, take a whiff,” Spike said. He was annoyed he had to play this card, he’d been hoping to keep this secret, but the Master was right. There was no other reason why Spike would be more deserving of the girl than Colin was. “What do you smell?”

   The Master looked twice at Amanda, sniffing the air above her head. “Why... that is a peculiar aroma, what... what is...?”

   “Slayer,” Spike said. “Can’t you smell it? One snuffs it, another one rises?” He grinned broad. “I’m betting this is one of those.”

   “A latent slayer? Why... is such a thing possible?” The Master took Amanda out of Spike’s hands and looked her over, his clawed fingers trailing down her perfect skin. The girl whimpered slightly. “Perhaps we should turn her? Or _train_ her, can you imagine a slayer on our side?”

   “I’ll have the scythe before we kill the slayer,” Spike said. “She won’t get a chance to be called, so she’s just a girl. But the scent... I want the taste one more time before I give it up to the greater evil.”

   “You want to kill her?”

   Spike knew that was going to be the hard bit. “Well, play with her first,” he said. “You don’t waste a choice little niblet like this on a fast kill.”

   The Master smiled. “You give me hope, Spike. With all your disadvantages, to relish your evil so carefully.”

   “Hey, a bloke learns to work around his handicaps.”

   “But I want my Christmas dinner!” the Anointed One shouted.

   The Master turned and walked over the evil brat. “Shut your mouth,” he said absently as the boy groaned. “You truly have become more trouble than you’re worth. Go out to the pens and pick someone out, and keep your mouth shut about it,” he said. “I gave you exorbitant powers, the least you could do is use them. Go hunt yourself, if you want a child.” He sat down on his throne and smiled at Spike. “I intend to watch Darla’s grandson enjoy his gift.”

   Spike was left with his spoils, in the form of a white faced eleven year old girl, staring up at him in terror. Terror he was in no position to allay.

   Because there was only one way to get her out of this alive, and it was not going to be pleasant. Not for either of them.

 

***

 

   He was trying to torture her, Amanda realized. That was what this was. A long, slow, really refined torture.

   She’d known, when they didn’t kill her just at first, that they had something awful in store for her. They’d dragged her down under the ground, into this torchlit pit, with all these vampires around. At least she figured they were all vampires. Most of them were unmistakable with the teeth and the eyes. Everyone she looked at, most of them were all toothed up, but some weren’t, and she stared at each normal face as she passed them, hoping, hoping that maybe there was someone human? But all the ones who were human were screaming or dying, and all the others... they had not looked back with anything human in their eyes, even if their teeth were hidden.

   The white haired guy had looked human at first. She’d stared at him, searching, but the cold dead look in his blue eyes told her, no. There was nothing human there, either. But then... then there was the boy. And suddenly she felt lucky. A little boy, about her age, and he looked at her with those big eyes, and she wasn’t scared anymore. It all made sense then, and she walked easily as that big vampire pushed her forward.

   And then suddenly she was ripped away from the boy’s eyes, and the peace they had granted her, and the white haired guy had her tight in his terrifying grip. The Master — that’s what they called the ugly one — the Master had pawed at her then, with claws like a creepy parrot or something, and she was lots more scared than she had been even at first. And then she was handed to the white haired guy, and he was _so_ going to eat her!

   She wished she’d been given to the boy. At least he’d been her own age.

   First he’d untied her. Taken the duct tape off and made her stand there while he looked her over like she was some show dog or something, or... or no, like a piece of meat at the butchers. He expounded for a long time on the length of her leg, the suppleness of her neck, and she burst into tears again. She’d been doing that crying thing on and off since yesterday, in between long moments when she just sort of stopped, and everything seemed to disappear for a while.

   “Yeah, that’s right, pet,” he’d said to her, in a voice that sent worms crawling up her back. “You cry.”

   She’d actually sobbed.

   Then the teasing had started. “Why don’t you walk out?” he offered. “Go on. Leave. Just walk away. Run, rabbit, run, rabbit. Run, run, run.”

   She’d stood there in confusion and horror. Was he offering to let her go? But she was in the demon district, she knew there was no walking out of there. The Mayor had made an announcement about that, last year when they put up the fence.

   “Go on. Run, run, run.”

   All she did was stand, trembling. Crying.

   “Run!”

   She’d run. Or actually she’d walked, uncertain, across the room and toward the stairs, and then there was the Spike guy again, right between her and that false freedom. He picked her up and carried her back across the room, and sat down before the ugly guy in his throne, and the boy complained about losing his treat, and that Spike didn’t even really want her, cause he wasn’t eating her. Then the Spike guy grabbed her by the hair and dragged her across the room, and dumped her in a corner, and... he was shouting something at the other two, but she had a moment then, and she let things go empty. She had another of those jumps when nothing mattered, and when he picked her up again, finished with his yelling, she was startled.

   That was when he bit her neck. That had to have been what the yelling was about, getting on with it and biting her. She screamed. It really, really hurt, and she knew she was going to die then. You get bitten on the neck by a vampire, you die, right? His mouth was cold and slimy, and his body felt wrong, and everything about him felt wrong, and it was really _close._ It was like when she was hugged by her mom or dad, only it wasn’t her mom or dad, so it felt wrong that way, and he was cold and dead, and she hated it. She whimpered and sobbed more when he threw her on the ground, and pranced around her, talking about bouquets and aromas and delicate flavors and how Colin couldn’t have appreciated the complexity.

   And there was a gap... one of the doorways wasn’t guarded....

   She scampered toward it, and she got halfway down it, and then the white haired one had her again, and dragged her back, kicking and screaming, and...

   And it went on like that. “Run and catch,” like he sang at her once. “Run and catch.” She lost count of how many times he let her get away, or told her to run away, (run, rabbit, run) and caught her again, dragging her back. Her dad used to take her fishing before he — before. And she remembered him saying, “Now, give a little line back, you let it swim away, and then reel it in closer... yeah, that’s it. You got the fish now, honey.”

   That’s what this was. She was a fish on a line. She was a mouse in the jaws of the cat. She was a little girl in the hands of a vampire.

   He’d let her go, (run, rabbit, run) and then he’d catch her, and lick at her neck, and she’d cringe. She learned not to scream when it happened. It just made all the other vampires stare at them, and that made it worse, somehow. She learned not to run when she walked away, (run, rabbit, run) because it made all the others tense up, as if they were about to pounce too, like a bunch of lions on a zebra or something, and every time they did that the white haired guy would grab her so hard and so fast she’d get bruised. He carried her around like a doll or a teddy bear. He perched her on his lap like he was some jolly old Santa Claus before putting his cold, slimy mouth on the wound on her neck again.

   God, she hated him. She was scared of all of them, but she came to really, really hate the... the _big jerk_ who was putting her through all this. _Run, rabbit, run._ “Why don’t you just kill me?” she asked finally.

   “You’d like that, wouldn’t you, rabbit?” he said with a nasty, toothsome grin. “I’ll kill you in my own sweet time.”

   That was the last time she cried. After that the tears seemed to dry up, or she got too tired for them. But he wouldn’t leave her alone. Over and over again, run, rabbit, run, run and catch, dragged back, run and catch, dragged back, sucked on, paraded around, run and catch, dragged back. Her legs ached. Her back ached. Her arms were bruised. She had scratches and scrapes on her knees from being dragged across the floor. And every time he put his slimy dead mouth on her she knew she was a little closer to death.

   She wished she’d stayed on that roof. She wished she’d burned to death with her mother. She really, really, really wished she could stake this white haired, yellow eyed monster who had turned her into some kind of toy.

   She wished she was already dead.

   Most of the others wandered off after a while. The little boy fell asleep. Even the ugly guy, the Master or whatever they called him, seemed to get bored of watching him torture her and started talking with some of the others, making plans or something, talking about a hell mouth and an army and a ten-thousand-strong, and it didn’t matter. They’d been at this for hours. She was so, so, so tired. Her eyes started to close, even in the white haired jerk’s lap, as he slowly ate her alive....

   “Run, rabbit, run,” he whispered to her again.

   She didn’t want to run anymore. She wanted to die.

   “Run, rabbit,” he whispered.

   She stood up, knowing this game, and walked, slowly down the passage, out and down past the other vampires — they’d done this before. He’d let her get far enough away, and then drag her back. A little farther each time, but it didn’t mean anything. She heard him then, behind her, and she stopped, expecting him to grab her — run and catch — but this time when he grabbed her he kept going forward, and... and he was running. Really running. Running fast enough that she couldn’t keep up, and he scooped her under his arm and hoisted her over his shoulder like a backpack or something and kept going. He turned a corner, threw her onto the concrete floor of the sewer and started taking her clothes off.

   Oh, god, was that really what he...?

   He ripped off her sweatshirt and jeans and tossed them aside before he turned on a valve or something in the wall.

   “What—”

   A stream of cold water burst from a pipe and hit her full in the face.

   “Ahh—!”

   “Shut up!” he hissed, grabbing hold of her head. She noticed, for the first time, that he’d let his fangs down again. His eyes were blue and desperate as they stared at her. “Stay quiet as a mouse, niblet,” he hissed. “Get that water on you. We gotta confuse the scent.”

   She didn’t understand, but she knew to listen to him, because he’d grab and bite her if she didn’t. She shivered in only her t-shirt and underpants as the cold water chilled her down to her bones. Even he stood under it for a bit, mostly getting his boots wet. He scuffed her shoes hard against the ground and got them wet, too, before telling her to get them back on her feet. She was freezing. It was chilly underground, and now she was wet, and her neck stung where he’d bitten her. He shoved her clothes into his coat and grabbed her by her bruised arm. She cried out, and he hissed at her again to shut up.

   He dragged her down the sewer tunnel, farther and farther away from the Master’s throne room. The walk hurt too. She was so cold, and so tired. They came to a crossroads in the tunnels, where like six different passages all met up. He stopped there, and threw her down into a hollow brick hole in the corner. She didn’t have pants on, and she was freezing. The hollow was full of old prickly things, dead leaves and maybe rat’s nests, and it was dark in there. She couldn’t see anything but her captor’s legs, as he stood before the hollow. (This meant, she realized, no one walking casually down the dark passages would be able to see her....)

   And to Amanda’s surprise, her captor started singing. Loudly. _Really_ loudly. He’d been all, _quiet as a mouse_ just a second ago, and now he was announcing his presence loud enough it almost hurt her ears. “ _Just put me in a wheelchair, get me on a plane. Hurry, hurry, hurry, before I go insane. I can't control my fingers, I can't control my brain. Oh no no no no no..._ ”

   He was insane. He was _already_ completely insane, she was freezing, half naked, in a sewer, with an insane vampire.

    _“Ba-ba-bamp-ba ba-ba-ba-bamp-ba I wanna be sedated. Ba-ba-bamp-ba ba-ba-ba-bamp-ba I wanna be sedated...._ ”

   He finished the song, and then started it over again. She huddled in on herself and whimpered.

   He crouched down and glared in at her. “Shut it,” he said low.

   “I’m freezing to death,” she muttered.

   He paused for a long moment, and for one brief second she thought she saw a spark of something human in his eyes.... No. It couldn’t be. But then he took off his black leather coat, carefully removing her clothes from its sleeve. “Here.” He tucked it over her. It smelled nice, actually, of cigarette smoke and leather and… well. He was dead and slimey, but he didn’t smell bad. “Stay quiet, quiet, lamb. We don’t want the wrong bugger catching you.”

   Oh. Was that what this was about? She was about to be passed off to someone else, now?

   He stood back up and resumed his really annoying singing. She curled up tight into a ball and... she was surprised, but the exhaustion overtook her. She closed her eyes, and sort of zoned out, though she wouldn’t have called what happened anywhere near as restful as sleep.

   When she zoned back in, her captor was talking to someone. A girl. “I can’t! God, Spike, do you have any idea how hard it’s been just keeping _myself_ alive in this place?”

   “You can’t just hand her over to get eaten!”

   “You think I haven’t seen the pens?” she demanded. “You think I don’t want to save them? It’s not like I could just turn them into some army, they’ve tried rebelling, all that happens is they get eaten faster! I talk to some of them, sometimes, you know. I help where I can, but this? I can’t do it!”

   “But she’s just a kid!”

   “Just a kid? Spike, I’ve heard _babies_ crying, and then it gets suddenly cut off, do you know how awful that is? I can’t just go around saving the victims in this place!”

   “She’s not just a victim! She’s a potential!”

   “‘Scuse me, a what now?”

    “A potential slayer. One snuffs it, another one rises? She might be next on the docket, love!”

   “She’s a...? Oh, goddamn—” Amanda blushed then as a stream of profanity poured from the woman’s mouth, starting with the f-word, and branching out into words Amanda didn’t even recognize.

   “Yeah,” Spike said. “Just like you, pet.”

   “Fuck,” the woman muttered again. “How’d you even get her out of there?”

   “It wasn’t bloody easy,” he said, sounding resentful. “And I’m not done yet. Angel gives you fresh clothes, yeah?”

   “Well... yeah, but I can’t get to any of the caches until daylight.”

   “Well, she’s up a creek, then, ‘cause I need her clothes. I figure I pull one of the corpses off the waste pile, dress it up, ruin its face a bit.”

   “Will that fool them?”

   “Not for long, I’ll have to let them see it then do something with the body. Burn it, maybe. Is that bonfire still burning near the car park?”

   “The what now?”

   “The parking lot!” Spike snarled.

   “Oh, uh... yeah.”

   “That should do,” he said. “Here, I got... damn.” He bent down and peered back in at Amanda. “Sorry, niblet. I’m gonna need that back.” He took away the comforting coat, and Amanda shivered. She was still damp and cold. “Here, slayer. Payment.”

   “Two measly packs of cigarettes does not constitute payment, asshole,” the woman snapped, but it sounded more exasperated than actually angry.

   “I’m really sorry, pet. I couldn’t let her die, not this time.”

   “This time?” She paused a moment. “Didn’t manage it in your world, huh?”

   “You just gotta keep her alive. Just for a few days, we’re close to finding it, I’m sure of it.”

   The woman made a noise deep in her throat. “Don’t really leave me much choice, do you.”

   “Thank you! Thank you, thank you, thank you, I take back everything I ever said about that other bitch in my own world.”

   “Don’t you dare! I gotta be better than _someone._ ”

   Spike knelt down again, the woman squatting down beside him. She was tough, rough, her hair unbrushed. She looked like a street person, but her eyes were scary deep. Amanda felt a thrill deep inside looking at her. “Amanda, sweetheart? This here’s Faith.”

   “Hey,” the woman said. Her voice was rich and it resonated. Amanda already liked her.

   “Faith’s gonna try and keep you alive. You listen to everything she says, and try and stay  hidden, yeah? We’ll come and get you out of here as soon as we can. As soon as we can,” he repeated, his face twisting. He grabbed her again and kissed her on the forehead, and she whimpered with horror. What the hell did he think he was, her sweet old uncle or something? He was her torturer!

   He seemed to realize that at the sound she made, and he cringed away. He stared at her, his face open and helpless for a long moment. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. Then he closed off, as if he’d just turned into a storefront mannequin or something. He rolled back onto his feet and disappeared, taking her clothes with him.

   Her mother had bought her that sweatshirt.

   “Hey, there, Mandy,” Faith said with a smile. “Do you ever go by Mandy? I know someone we can tease mercilessly, if you do.”

   “Um….” Amanda never had, but she figured she could, if Faith wanted her to. Also, she realized... she’d never told Spike that her name was Amanda.

 

 

Illustrations

1: "Spike and Young Amanda" photoshop by Javajunkie.

2: "Run Rabbit" drawing by Catryona.

 

I adore both of these people!

 


	29. Chapter 29

 

   The corpse in Spike’s arms was cold and hideous, but her hair was about right, and her body shape was similar. The replacement he’d managed to rip from the refuse was older than Amanda had been, but that could be concealed by zipping up the bloodstained sweatshirt.

   He didn’t want to think about the refuse pile. He was reminded again of Nazi Germany. If he had had any doubts about what he was doing, the refuse pile was enough to drive it home that ending this was all that bloody mattered.

   He’d broken the corpse’s face, mucked it up, and made quite, quite certain to carry the thing through the Bronze before he headed over to the bonfire outside it and chucked it on. Amanda’s pretty sweatshirt went up in flames. He hoped no one had noticed she wasn’t wearing shoes.

   “Aw,” said a ghoul that had been busy roasting toes — someone’s toes anyway — over the fire. “I wanted a taste.”

   “Sorry, mate,” Spike said. “When I take a treat, I own her. I don’t share.”

   There were a handful of demons around the bonfire, not all of them vampires. Spike was keyed up and terrified. He’d saved Amanda, yes, but she was still in jeopardy, and he’d just put Faith in even more danger than she had been. This whole thing might blow up in his face. He might have just made matters worse, actually.

   He glanced up at the sky. He’d promised Buffy. Well, he’d already stood her up, it was an hour to sunrise, now. He’d made his show to the Master, he’d made his show of disposing of his “treat” at the Bronze, could he safely escape now and go find Buffy? It was risky. He couldn’t make the excuse that he wanted to hunt on his own, which is how he usually left the demon district. It was known throughout that he’d already fed. But... Buffy was expecting him....

   He wanted to go to her. He wanted to spend Christmas day at Buffy’s mum’s house, have Joyce make him a nice cuppa. He wanted to see Joyce. He hadn’t had a chance to meet this one. He wanted to see Buffy. _God_ he wanted Buffy.

   He stank of blood and dead girl.

   Bugger it. He was going to see Buffy. He should tell them about Amanda and Faith, anyway. He hitched up his coat and moved away from the demons around the fire, heading across the district to one of the lesser used gaps in the fence.

   “Spike, Spike!”

   Spike looked over. What the...? Oh. That was one of his minions, wasn’t it? He didn’t remember the name, but he knew he’d left the blighter at the dig site. “What? What the hell are you doing here?”

   “I’ve been looking for you all night! You’ve been nowhere!”

   “I’ve been here with the Master, mate,” Spike said. “What’s wrong?”

   “The dig, Spike. We need you back at the dig.”

   “Why?” He rolled his eyes. “If Brian’s having a problem, tell him to dust whoever’s not pulling their weight, and I’ll get back to him.”

   “Brian’s dust,” the minion said.

   “What?”

   “We found your weapon.”

   Spike started. “You did? You found it?”

   “Just a corner of it. It’s still mostly embedded in the rock. But Brian saw it, and tried to touch it, and it threw him across the room! Like a big pulse or something. He hit some of the shoring, and it came down, and there was a bit of a cave in, and one of the supports staked him. He’s dusted, man. And—”

   “There was another cave in?” Spike grabbed the minion. “You found the scythe, but there was a cave in?”

   “Uh... yeah? But anyway, no one will work without Brian, so Harmony told me to go get you, and—”

   The dig had been granted only limited vehicles by the Master. “How’d you get here?”

   “Uh... the chopper.”

   Spike reached into the minion’s pocket and grabbed the keys to the motorcycle. He threw the guy on the ground and tossed the keys for the van onto his chest. “Get the blood loaded into the van. No live victims! They’re distractions! I’ll meet you at the dig.”

   “Uh... yes boss.”

   He crossed the demon district at a run. They found the scythe, they found it, they had it, they found it. He just had to get there, clear out the sodding new cave in, and clear it. Just clear it, then Buffy could get hold of it, break through this god damn barrier, or just walk through and kill the Master, and they could... they could stop this, they could stop it, they could get this whole nightmare over with!

   He could go home...!

   Go home, with Buffy? asked a small, disgusted portion of himself. Would you really send her home with a murderer, who eats people alive? Some bastard who tortures little girls? Who has been cheating on her for weeks? Come on, Spike milad, would _you_ send her off with you? You can’t hide behind not having a soul. You can’t lie and say anyone made you do these things. You did them. All of them. With free will and of your own volition, no one forced your hand or got into your brain and made you. You don’t deserve Buffy.

   She doesn’t deserve to be saddled with a sod like you.

   He crossed the barrier and climbed onto the chopper his minion had left by the gate. Didn’t matter now. Now it was time to get that scythe free for Buffy, so they could get Faith out of there, turn the Master to the dust he deserved to be, tear every single one of these undead murdering bastards limb from limb and dust to dust. It was time to be done with this.

   He tried not to think of Buffy, even though she was so heavy in his mind he could almost hear her voice in the purr of the engine. Time to be done with this, he thought.

   Time to be done.

 

***

 

   Buffy was done.

   She’d been waiting all fucking night, and she was done with it. So fucking done.

   Hour after hour, minute after minute, all of them weighing on her so heavily, like time had become a physical thing. Her arms were heavy with time, her head drooped with time, her heart was pounding trying to carry all this time. Thinking every car going past, every whistle of the breeze, every clunk from the settling house was Spike. Trying to make excuses, and then unable to make them, just saying things like, “When Spike gets here,” instead of wondering why he wasn’t. Looking at the clocks. Had they stopped? Was this hellmouthyness come to get them again? Had time stopped dead? Were they stuck in a loop? Was Spike in a time loop? How would they get out? But no, time was passing. It was just so. Fucking. Slow.

   Spike had promised. He had promised Angel, he’d promised. He was going to come Christmas Eve. Well, Christmas Eve had officially ended at midnight, and it was still the dark of Christmas Morn and he still hadn’t come. They’d gone ahead and eaten the turkey some time about ten. It had gone dry, but the gravy was good. Buffy had saved some for Spike, hoping... hoping.

   Joyce had gone to bed after that. Giles had offered to stay up with Buffy, and then offered (braving the vampires) to leave for his apartment, or to sleep on the couch, but Buffy just shrugged. “If you want to go snuggle Mom, go snuggle Mom. Someone should get their honey tonight, anyway.”

   “He might have been held up,” Giles said. “He might still show.”

   “Yeah, I know,” Buffy said. The lights were mostly off. Only the tree glowed pointedly in the corner, and the candles she had put in the window for him. Spike liked candlelight. They were burning low. “The night is young, for a vampire.”

   Giles put his hand comfortingly on her shoulder before he went up the stairs. For him that was a big gesture, and she knew it.

   Where was Spike? Why hadn’t he come? Why wasn’t he there? Angel was in LA, talking to Jenny’s family, and that was probably pretty important, so she couldn’t call Angel and ask him to check on him again. There was nothing she could do except... fret. That’s how Spike would have put it, fret. She was fretting over him.

   God damn it, she couldn’t do this. She grabbed a vamp-gear sweatshirt off the front peg, made sure a stake was in her pocket, and headed out to walk the perimeter. She totally wasn’t looking for Spike. That was silly. Maybe he couldn’t get away from the dig. Maybe he had car trouble. Maybe he’d been held up by something....

   Three thoughts pounded deep in her skull, two of them very loud. What if he was hurt/injured/dust? And what if the Master had caught on?

   The third thought was quiet, and she kept pushing it away. But it kept surfacing, like a fallen leaf in a jacuzzi. What if he just didn’t want to come?

   And unfortunately, that thought had a dozen other questions dangling off it, all of them hinging on why. The whatifs were cruel and pervasive, and ran the gamut from him being bored with Buffy, to him actually turning evil, and she didn’t like any of those possibilities, so she kept shoving that thought away rather than letting any of those dangling questions be dragged up by it. Of course he had wanted to come. So. What had kept him away?

   She wasn’t just hurt. She was _scared._

   She didn’t have time to be scared. She had a Scooby meeting tomorrow. She had a full fucking plate. She had the Master to get rid of, the Initiative to undermine, Sunnydale Hellmouth High School to keep tamped down, and she had to try and thin out the vampires, at least a little bit, every single night. She was killing ten to twenty a day, and that was just at the perimeter. If she found an out-district nest in the graveyards or warehouses, it could be up to fifty. This world was _horrible._ The only time she’d had to fight this many vampires... well, was right before the fall of Sunnydale.

   She would wear vamp gear as she patrolled, but mostly so she could put it on any victims she rescued, who might be in the process of being dragged into the demon district. She doubted there was much activity tonight, but she realized she should check the main crossing points, gaps in the fence. Just to see.

   The main entrance in the center of town seemed fairly clear tonight. Good. Buffy wasn’t surprised. Vampires stayed home for semi-religious reasons on Halloween. They tended to stay home at Christmas because they didn’t want to be perceived as celebrating. They usually huddled in their lairs and brooded, avoiding all the cheery good will and religious symbolism.

   But there was often Christmas travel, and there were those busses the vampires had started hijacking, brought in to supplement the local hunting. That was the one benefit to the damn organic field’s restrictions. They couldn’t drive the busses of victims right inside. They had to take them to one of the out-district parking lots, and file them in one at a time. Buffy had saved a lot of busses full of people. She had a benefit, in that a lot of the vampires were afraid of her, more afraid than they had been of Faith. They still didn’t know what had happened to Faith, but they knew Buffy was supposed to be dead. Some wondered if Faith had turned into Buffy, or if Buffy had been resurrected into Faith’s body, or what. So even just arriving could make a lot of the vampires scamper back to their safe zone.

   Yeah. She’d check out the parking lot. She didn’t expect any busses right now — Angel was usually able to catch rumors that they were out hijacking, and he’d heard Christmas was going to be fairly quiet — but she should check, and....

   She almost hoped Angel was wrong, and there was a whole busload of people she could save. And a whole passel of vampires she could stake. She needed something to take her mind off this....

   Why hadn’t Spike come?

   She came up on the hill that overlooked the demon district south parking lot, and climbed the radio antenna there. This was something Xander had come up with for Kendra, a way to see what she was up against. At the top of the ladder he’d nailed a pair of binoculars. If she looked through one way, she could see the highway, and any trucks or busses bringing in “supplies”. If she looked the other way, she could see the main district square, outside the Bronze, which would show her if they had a raiding party mustering or something. She looked. There was no welcoming committee awaiting a shipment at the parking lot, and there were no more demons than there usually were milling around outside the Bronze.

   She sighed, disgruntled, and was about to put down the binoculars when she saw something that caught her eye. It was very distinctive. A bright white head, standing by the perpetual bonfire which the more hell-loving demons kept burning there. He.... Well, that answered one question, at least. Spike was alive and hale and whole, and fairly free, so the Master probably hadn’t caught on to him. So what the hell was he...? He was... holding something... no, someone. He had a victim in his arms, and....

   And as she watched, he threw the woman casually into the fire.

   The taste of iron filled her mouth, as if she’d swallowed blood. Spike stood easily, leaning on one foot in his most relaxed pose. As she watched he stretched, as if bored, and gazed into the fire where a young woman was burning to death... or burning to ashes, anyway, Buffy hadn’t been able to tell if she had already been dead.

   What? What, what, what, no, no, no, there had to be, it couldn’t be, there was some, no, no, what? _What?_

   Spike nonchalantly wandered away from the fire, and seemed to be headed in the direction of the western perimeter. There... there was a gap there. It wasn’t much used, but Buffy knew it was there. Was he leaving the demon district? Did he... did he have an explanation?

   Of course he does, Buffy told herself. You know this man. You know him. You _know._

   She’d ask, but she wouldn’t accuse. He had a reason. Whatever it was, he had one. She was about to climb down to meet him by the gap when she saw Spike had been caught at the edge of the square. Someone stopped and spoke to him. Spike shook the guy — probably another vampire — and threw him to the ground. And then he was running.

   Not running to the western gap. He was running right for her, running to the parking lot gate. Buffy dropped the binoculars, forgetting to put them back inside their protective casing. They swung on their strap as she climbed down the ladder — oh, fuck the climbing. Buffy slid, her hands burning for a bit, and then flung herself away to jump the last dozen feet. She did not stick the landing. She was so agitated she stumbled and fell right down on her ass. She scrambled to her feet, not caring, and ran toward the parking lot, not being at all careful or surreptitious. If anyone had been looking for her, they couldn’t possibly have missed her.

   And there was Spike, outside the demon district, having picked out one of the motorcycles. He straddled it just as Buffy came over the crest of the hill. He hadn’t seen her, she couldn’t get there in time, and... and... she hesitated a moment, because could this blow his cover? But she couldn’t just let him go! It reminded her of that stupid moment when she ran after Riley, and called after his helicopter. But this wasn’t Riley, this was Spike, and she didn’t know why he was going. She had to know why! Why... all of it?

   “Spike!” she shouted at him, just as he revved the engine. No. No! She started running again. “Spike!” she called. She risked once more. _“Spike!”_

   But he had already gunned the bike out the parking lot, and was speeding down the road toward the highway.

   “Spike,” she whispered one more time. There was another time she had said that name, standing alone and bereft at the edge of destruction. The crater he’d made this time wasn’t the size of the whole damn town. It was just in her heart.

   So why the hell did it feel so much bigger?

 


	30. Chapter 30

  
  


   “You need to tell us the truth,” Tara said. “The whole truth.”

   Buffy frowned at the group. Tara would have preferred the entire Scooby group to have been there, since that was sort of the whole point, but apparently the vampire was in LA with the descendant of the people who cursed him, dealing with his conscience, and that was not something a Wicca dismissed. Karma was very important. The other vampire, whom Tara had never met, was on some super-secret undercover work, which none of the humans knew much detail about, only that when he’d shown up at the raid on the school, he had actually helped get the vampires away so they could uninvite them, despite appearances to the contrary.

   None of that really mattered, anyway. The truth was, Tara knew they needed to know what Buffy knew, or something, somewhere, was going to go wrong.

   “Look, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you when I recruited you, Tara, but the truth was just….”

   “Harder,” Tara said quietly. “I know. Lies are easier. But that’s the path to darkness, Buffy. Wasn’t that exactly what you told me I was supposed to stand against?”

   “She has a point, Buffy,” Giles said quietly. “I seem to remember someone reminding me that lies pile up. Who was that?”

   Buffy glared at him. Her aura was sharp and dark, despite the bizarre shimmery Doppler effect it had, where it all seemed to be trying to fade right out of the world. Tara had only ever seen that Doppler effect in demons and other dimensional travelers. The aura was darker than it had been when she’d met Buffy. It had been growing steadily darker and sadder ever since Tara had known her. It worried her. Buffy might declare that she knew what she was doing, but she was just as uncertain as any of them, really.

   “Fine,” Buffy said, throwing up her hands. “What did you all want to know?”

   “Well, Willow told me about the spell that brought you here,” Tara said. “I need to know more about this other world of yours, where time has passed on. We need to know what’s going to happen to us.”

   “I don’t think that’s how it works,” Xander said. “I mean... things are supposed to be different, right? It’s a different universe, that’s the whole point. Like all the variants in the Superman canon, incorporating the infinite earths, where Clark Kent had to be integrated into the canon to make sense of the golden age vs. silver age Superman, integrating the Superboy subplots, and….” He stopped when Cordelia gave him a look. “Yes, okay? I’m a geek! It means I get this stuff! I just mean things won’t be the same in this world as they were in the other.”

   “But you’re still using that knowledge to form your decisions here, aren’t you Buffy?” Tara pressed.

   Buffy hesitated, and then nodded. “Yeah.”

   “So. If things had progressed the way they did in your universe, what happens to all of us? What should we know about that we should pursue? What bad things could happen that we should try to avoid? Since Xander is right, and it’s not all predestined, we can change things, and... your knowledge is a better predictor than my own divinations.”

   Buffy shook her head, uncertain, but Giles raised an eyebrow. “You told me,” he said quietly.

   Buffy glared again. Then she sighed. “And I told Angel,” she confessed. “All right. Fine. Jenny died,” she said quickly. “That was the biggest change. She would have been killed last year. If you want to know more, you can talk to Angel and Jenny about it, I think it’s their business. They both know the details.”

   Giles made a quiet note in his book.

   “What about the rest of us?” Willow asked, sitting down next to Tara. She gently took her hand under the table. Tara took in a deep breath. She hated to admit it, since she was trying to play calm, cool, collected ethical witch, but she was terrified. She knew what was coming when the talk turned to her own fate; in less than two years, she was going to go through some kind of transformation, and….

   Still. At least she would have done some good before it happened.

   “It’s all really complicated,” Buffy said.

   “Is it okay that Tara and I….” Willow took a deep breath, stood up, and said, “Tara and I have been dating. Like, dating, not just studying magic. Okay? So. I’m gay now. Okay.”

   Xander knew, of course. Giles just raised an eyebrow for a moment, and then looked back to his notebook, unperturbed. Cordelia kept a carefully neutral expression on her face. Buffy smiled softly. “I figured,” she said.

   “You figured? I mean… you… you figured?”

   “Yeah,” she said. “I hope you don’t mind, Tara. I swear, the only magic I used was putting you two in the same room. In my world, you two were very good for each other. When… other things didn’t get in the way.”

   “What other things?” Tara asked, pulling a furiously blushing Willow down to sit again.

   “Well, the magic. And murderous hell gods trying to suck out your mind, that kind of thing.”

   Tara swallowed. “So. That’s what happened to me?”

   “Yeah, sort of.” Buffy stopped prevaricating and came in closer. “All right, Tara? Bringing you in was a big risk, but it was also the best thing I could think of for everyone. Including you.”

   “Were… you able to c-contain it?” she asked quietly.

   “Contain what?”

   “When I… went… through my transformation?”

   “Trans…. What are you…?” She rolled her eyes. “Oh, god, you don’t have any demon in you, Tara.”

   Tara was startled. “What?”

   “You’re not part demon, your father is an asshole, and your brother is a thug,” Buffy said bluntly. “We can test it, if you need proof, but I already know. A technomystic neurochip tested your counterpart, and there was no demon in there. Never saw any indication of it.”

   “A... apart from the magic?” Tara asked.

   “The magic isn’t demonic, its human. Very, very human, that’s the whole point. In fact, it’s one the most natural, beneficial magical gifts I’ve ever seen. Some of the cleanest, purest, Glinda the Good Witch shit. Honest.”

   “So... I’m not a demon?”

   “No,” Buffy said with a gentle smile. “You’re not a demon. And if your dad comes and tries to take you back to that crap farm you grew up on, you can turn to any or all of the people here, and they’ll help you. You don’t have to go.”

   Tara’s eyes welled up with tears. She couldn’t talk, she was too overwhelmed.

   Willow squeezed her hand. “I didn’t know you thought that,” she said softly.

   “I... I didn’t....” Now she felt bad. She’d only trusted Buffy ‘cause she was sure Buffy already knew. She should have trusted Willow. She should have....

   “Okay, what about me?” Xander said. Tara was glad Willow’s friend was so nice. He was drawing attention away from her crying fit, and she was grateful.

   “Well, Xander, you’re complicated. Most of what you ought to look out for is mostly personal life stuff. I’ll tell you about some of that in private, if you ask later, ‘cause it really shouldn’t concern anyone else. Mostly you’ve just been staunch, supportive, and honest. You did lose an eye, in 2003.”

   Xander blinked, and then pointedly winked each eye one at a time. “Which one?”

   “The left, but you shouldn’t worry. I don’t think that circumstance is going to replicate.”

   “Why not?”

   “Because no one is going to be bringing anyone back from the dead, which opened a path to a truly evil power, which is what was responsible for that. That’s the bit you all really need to know.” She turned to Willow. “You.”

   Willow looked up from Tara. “What about me?”

   “You could go very, very, very dark. We’re talking Let’s Destroy The World For The Hell Of It shit.”

   “Why would I do that?”

   “Grief. Pain. And the magic got away from you. Now, you got through it, but it was very touch and go, and it’s still something you — or she. My Willow. It’s still something she struggles with. Like an addiction to something. Dark spells, black magic, power that breaks the natural order. And... well, hubris. It hurt a lot of people. A  _ lot  _ of people. If you want to avoid that, if you want to avoid hurting people, you need to be very careful. That was why I called Tara in. She knows how to help you walk this. She’s your guide. And Tara, you have to trust that you can be. You need to keep doing the same sort of thing you did today, ask the right questions, and demand answers. Don’t let your insecurities keep you silent.”

   Tara nodded. “I can do that.”

   Buffy turned to Giles. “I told you about Faith.”

   “You hinted,” Giles said.

   “I hinted enough. Don’t let her slip away. That’s your job, Giles, to support her. Don’t ever walk away from that role. You’re the support. You’re a mentor, not the leader. You guide, you don’t choose. But never stop guiding, and never let up that support. The slayer needs her watcher.”

   He nodded.

   “So. That’s everyone.”

   “Hello,” Cordelia said, raising her hand. “What about me?”

   Buffy stared at her for a long moment. “I....” She took a deep breath and sat down.

   Tara already knew this wasn’t good.

   “I don’t actually know about you, Cordy,” Buffy said quietly. “You left Sunnydale.”

   “I know. I went to LA and became an actress. Does that mean you stopped following my career?”

   “You didn’t become an actress, Cordy,” Buffy said. “You did go to LA. You worked with Angel for a long time, and you did some really interesting things, I think. But the thing is, something happened to you, and I’m not sure what.”

   “Well... what do you mean, you’re not sure?”

   “You got... hurt. Somehow. You were in a coma for a while, and then you died. But the thing is, I don’t actually know how that happened. All I know is... it was bad enough that when I asked, none of Angel’s team wanted to tell me the details.”

   Cordelia stared at her. “You’re telling me I went to LA just to die in a coma.”

   “You were doing something with demons, and the Powers That Be, and like I said, I really don’t know the details. They did say you became part demon at one point.”

   “I—”

   “She—?”

   “Demon?”

   Buffy nodded. “They say you chose that.”

   Cordy stood up. “You’re saying I got  _ demon _ rather than movie star, all because I went to LA?”

   Buffy made a bit of a helpless gesture.

   “Well, screw that!” Cordelia said. “I’m going to New York!”

 

***

 

   Faith sighed. “I should never have left Boston,” she muttered, judging the buildings around her. “I should never have crossed the Rockies. I should never have come to this miserable place.” She already knew the place she was looking for. She just didn’t know how she was going to handle raiding it with Amanda in tow.

   “I’m sorry,” Amanda whispered again. She was still teary eyed.

   “Shut up, it’s fine!” Faith muttered, for what felt like the thousandth time.

   “But I’m putting us in danger.”

   “No, you’re not! Shut up!”

   “I didn’t mean to.”

   Faith sighed again. She crouched down by the kid and put her hands on her shoulders. “Amanda. It’s not your fault. It’s just something that happened, okay? And we’re gonna do something about it, got that?”

   Amanda nodded, sniffling, and rubbed her eyes with her sleeve. Her sleeve was filthy. All the rest of her clothes were filthy. That was fine, except for the streak of dark blood that stained her pants. It hadn’t occurred to Faith that this might be an issue, but apparently Amanda’s body had had other plans.

   This had come on them as a complete surprise. They’d found a spot to hole up and sleep that morning — it had taken Amanda few days to get used to the fact that they were safer sleeping in full sun during the day — and they’d thought everything was going fine for a bit. But then they’d been woken up by a demon who had smelled them out. Faith had killed it, and tried to figure out what had drawn it to them, and that was when she’d realized that Amanda’s pants were stained red. And not just a little.  

   Faith had been unprepared for this. She never had periods herself, hadn’t for years. Her first watcher had put her on a Norplant implant the moment she was found (she had already been sexually active) in case a condom failed. The last thing a Slayer or a teenage girl needed was an unplanned pregnancy. It had had the wonderful side-effect of cutting off her periods. She was glad of that, particularly here, as vampires were attuned to the scent of blood. Even if menstrual blood was a bit different, they could still smell it from a distance.

   Actually the fact that it was different was the biggest problem. Lots of blood in the demon district. Not so many menstruating women.

   It was Amanda’s first period. She cried. She said her mom had planned to take her to her first grown-up dinner out the first time that happened, to a really expensive restaurant, just the two of them. Her mom had planned on having a talk with her about boys. She hadn’t really been looking forward to the talk, but a fancy, grown-up, just girls dinner? It would have been great!

   Instead it was just her and Faith on a rooftop with a can of cold SPAM.

   And no supplies. Faith had spared some of their cherished toilet paper to help catch the flow, but it wasn’t adequate. They needed tampons or at least more toilet paper, they needed a clean blood-free pair of pants, and Faith knew Amanda needed somewhere she could curl up and have an emotional breakdown, something she’d been inadequately staving off since she woke up in this predicament.

   Unfortunately, the sewers where they could reach an un-guarded faucet weren’t remotely safe after daybreak, and the caches had mostly been raided.

   They had managed to find one cache Christmas morning that hadn’t been raided or destroyed, and it had had a spare change of clothes in it. And if the jeans were too big for Amanda, and if there wasn’t quite enough food for the two of them, and if there were no painkillers to help the kid with her neck wound, well, whatever, they were okay. The neck wound wasn’t bad anyway; it was in the same spot Spike had bit Faith, on that un-veined knot of muscle. Faith knew Amanda was technically just human, potential or not, so yeah, it probably did hurt Amanda more than it had hurt her, but she had a hard time getting worked up about it when the kid complained. They had had a chilly Christmas breakfast, hunkered down behind the chimney bank on the rooftop.

   Actually, it was kind of nice having Amanda’s company, even though finding ways to talk that were quiet enough to be safe had been a challenge. They didn’t get to talk much, so the companionship was mostly unspoken. And unfortunately, things had been getting steadily worse and worse ever since that first morning.

   They hadn’t managed to find another unspoiled cache. Angel was out of town, and had been gone longer than Faith had anticipated. They hadn’t eaten much since that Christmas breakfast, and they’d only had unfiltered water from the sewer taps to drink. It was technically potable, but it tasted terrible, since the function of those sewer taps was mostly just for water testing.

   They needed food. They needed a bathroom. They needed...  _ stuff _ .

   Which was why Faith was going after this apartment. She’d visited it before, a couple times, having seen human food resting on the windowsill. Whatever demon lived here liked Doritos and Coca-Cola. She hadn’t trusted the bucket of chicken wings she’d seen in the fridge, despite the reassuring commercial label. It was probably really chicken, but beside it had been a collection of what were obviously skinned rats, and sometimes there were baskets or cages full of kittens. It was a demon who lived here, but one with modest tastes who liked human stuff.

   The place had a bathroom, and would have cans and commercial bags of food they knew weren’t made of bits of human or dead rat, and they could probably find a pair of clean pants. She hoped the occupant was out for the day. She was prepared to kill him if he wasn’t.

   Faith quietly busted the lock on the door, and went in softly with her dagger in her hand and stake in her belt. The place seemed empty. She called Amanda in from the hallway (which she knew wasn’t safe) and sat her down on the floor of the kitchen. She grabbed a bag of chips from the cupboard and shoved them into Amanda’s hands before she’d gone to check out the bedroom. The bedroom had been empty, to her relief, and she’d come back out, only to find the door to the bathroom open, and a loose skinned, dog-toothed demon staring at her in horror.

   “Slayer...!” he’d squeaked, in a voice that sounded like a little kid talking about the monster under his bed. Faith jumped, and the demon backed up, crying oh, “Oh, hell, oh, hell, oh, hell! Don’t kill me!”

   To Faith’s disgust, he backed up into the kitchen, beside Amanda. “Mandy! Get behind me!” she snapped. She was scared the demon would go for the girl, but he didn’t, just scuttled the other way himself. Then, to her horror, his face split open, and a bunch of terrifying snakes came slithering out of his facial cavity. She slashed at them, hit one, and they all retreated. He was back to his dog toothed self, and he cowered in his towel.

   “Don’t!” he squeaked again, holding his hands over his head.

   Faith sighed, frustrated. God, this one was pathetic. 

   “Uh, little girl, you’re gonna want to look away,” he said then. “You don’t want to see this.” Then he cowered down even further. At first Faith had thought he was preparing for some kind of transformation, like the thing with his face, but then she realized... no. He just hadn’t wanted Amanda to watch him being hacked to pieces by the slayer.

   Dammit. She just couldn’t kill him. She knew the watchers council would just say,  _ demon, kill it, _ but god. The guy was pathetic. She hadn’t seen any indication that he was a danger to anything any bigger than a kitten. She’d been too close to Angel for too long, she knew not all demons were evil.

   Couldn’t let him go or anything, though. He’d tell....

   He looked up slowly as it became clear that Faith wasn’t going for the kill. “Uh, hi?”

   “Hey,” Faith said evenly.

   “You’re the slayer,” he said.

   “Yeah.”

   “This is the demon district. What the hell are you doing here?”

   “Apartment hunting,” Faith said quietly.

   He nodded. “Right. Um. You’re Mandy?”

   Amanda hesitated, and then nodded. “Yeah.”

   “Uh... I’m Clem.” He waved uncertainly. “Nice to meet you both.”

   “Don’t lie,” Faith said.

   “Okay,” Clem said. “I’m terrified.”

   “Much better.” She eyed him. “Is anything in your fridge made of anything human?”

   “You mean like human meat or blood or something? No, that stuff’s too rich. It makes my snakes break out in hives.”

   Well, that didn’t exactly mean he was harmless. “You have tasted human meat, then.”

   “Well, I’m not really made for it,” he said, fear making him still gasp a little. “The snakes don’t like it, they prefer something a little smaller. But when in Rome.... There’s a lot of vampires around here. They make demands sometimes, and if you want to be good neighbors....”

   Faith glanced at Amanda, whose neck was still scabbed and bruised. She knew she herself still had a scar from Spike’s bite — probably would for a year or more, according to Buffy. Vampire bite scars could take a while to fade. She sighed. Yeah. The vampires did make demands.

   “Uh, here, you want some Bugles?” he asked, eyeing Amanda with her bag of chips. “I just hit the store last night.” He gripped his towel closed and slowly stood up. He tossed Amanda another bag of chips. “Nice to see a kid around here. There aren’t any around these days.”

   “Because the vampires ate them all,” Faith snarled.

   “Yeah,” Clem said. “It’s a shame. I like kids.”

   “Something a little smaller, huh?”

   “What? Oh, no, I just mean they’re fun. Hey, did you want to see some Knight Rider?” he asked Amanda. “I have the complete first season taped. I...” He backed away as Faith showed him the knife. “Sorry. Look, I’m not gonna hurt you. Or the kid. Really. I don’t eat people. I don’t even judge. I just stand back and, you know... get out of the way.”

   “If you’re so harmless, why the fuck do you live here?” she asked.

   “Here? You mean... here, in the demon district?” Clem asked.

   Faith nodded.

   “Truthfully? I... I thought here I’d be safer from people like you.”

   Faith sagged.

   “It’s not just the slayer, there’s these commando guys near the college who kill any demon gets too close. But, you know, I need to live near the hellmouth for my health, my doctor says, so... I figured....” He shrugged. “They got a demon district all set up, just get a good apartment.”

   She still hadn’t made a judgement on whether or not this  _ Clem _ was going to ultimately be left alive, but Amanda really needed that bathroom. And Faith didn’t feel like killing him. “Fine,” she said. “You can live for now.”

   “I can?” Clem looked really relieved. “Um... Slayer? If... you’re not going to kill me, do you mind if I, you know. Maybe get some pants on? It’s sort of, well. Cold.”

What was she getting herself into?  Faith sighed.  

 


	31. Chapter 31

 

   New Year’s Eve. That was what they called it, a new year. It was an old year for Spike, 1999, but for the first time since he’d gotten to this place, he did have a reason to party.

   The scythe was uncovered.

   It had been partially uncovered for a day or two now, but not so much that he could expect even Buffy to Scythe-in-the-Stone it free. It had taken some days to get the cave in cleared enough that they could start excavating the rock again, and then Spike had had to do a lot of the finish work himself. He didn’t know if the scythe had had this kind of extreme reaction when touched by a vampire in his own universe; he’d touched Buffy’s scythe a bunch of times, and it had never blasted him across the room. But then, it had already been claimed by Buffy, and a lot of its power had probably been bled off when Willow used it to activate the rest of the potentials. Whether that one had once had this kind of inimical response was immaterial —  _ this one _ did. It could not be touched by a vampire without a violent defense, as if a power beyond time had thrown the vampire away from the scythe. They’d had to clear the rock touching only the rock itself. And now… now even that had stopped being possible. 

   But that was how it was supposed to be. 

   “So... now what?” Harmony asked. “We can’t get it free.”

   “No, we can’t,” Spike said. She wasn’t kidding. The final section of stone around the blade of the scythe had absorbed the mystical properties of the scythe itself and was probably hard as diamond. They had only been able to chip away at the area immediately surrounding the handle and stake end. The stone held the blade more tightly than a mother would its child. But they had done it. Spike was sure now that if he could get Buffy into this awkward narrow passage he’d cleared, she could claim the scythe, cut through the field, destroy the Master and end all of this.

   So why was he just sitting there, staring at it? At first he’d been waiting for sunset. The sun had set a good hour ago.

   “So... how are we going to use it to kill the Slayer or destroy the slayer line if we can’t even touch it?”

   “Well, I would assume some kind of glove would be in order,” Spike said sardonically. “I never said this pretty would be easy to wield.”

   “Doesn’t look that pretty to me,” Harmony muttered.

   It looked gorgeous to Spike. “That doesn’t matter.” 

   Harmony tapped her foot impatiently. “Well? How are we going to get it out?”

   “I’m working on it,” Spike said. “I’ll have to... go for a drive. Tell the Master. Then we’ll figure... something.”

   “Brandon already told him,” Harmony said.

   Spike’s head snapped to her. “Who?”

   “Brandon? Used to be from the Sewer Gang, he said? Anyway, he and Mikey said you were taking too long, and the Master would want to know, so he took the van already to go and tell him you were nearly done, and—”

   Spike grabbed her. “He  _ what? _ ”

   “He... took the van,” Harmony said nervously.

   “Gah!” Spike threw Harmony aside, and she nearly ran up against the scythe. If he’d aimed her for it, she would have dusted. As it was, she twisted and fell to the side, just missing it.

   She looked up. “Why are you always so mean to me?” she asked. “I’m not your dog.”

   “And I’m not anyone else’s,” Spike snarled. “Put to some bitch to breed.” He grabbed her by the hair and held her up to the pointy end of the scythe. Her eyes crossed as she stared at it before her nose. “If you let anyone, Trick, anyone, do anything to this weapon while I am gone, dust will be the least of your worries. If you need to fall on this to keep them off it, you do it and gladly, you hear me? I’ve learned how to torture vampires at the feet of  _ masters _ , do you hear me?  _ Do you? _ ” He shook her.

   “Yeah, yeah,” she said. “Yeah, I... I hear you.”

   Spike let her go.

   She went back down on her knees as Spike headed down the passage.

   “I know you’re working both sides,” she called out suddenly.

   Spike stopped. He turned. She looked remarkably innocent there, with her hair mussed, frightened out of her wits. She looked....

   She looked like she had when she was human. Just that one glimpse. He wished he’d never seen that. It wouldn’t leave his head. Why,  _ why _ did she have to say that? Now he was going to have to....

   “I’m not gonna tell them,” she said softly. “But I remember. I saw you in the school, after the raid, and you didn’t kill me. And Buffy said she was gonna help check out the rest of the school for other vampire stragglers, and... I just... I know, okay?” She stood up. “I didn’t say anything. Not to any of ‘em.”

   Spike stared at her. “Why not?”

   She shrugged. “‘Cause I liked you.”

   Spike closed his eyes. He couldn’t feel for her. He couldn’t feel at all right now, least of all for her.

   “I’m sorry if I displeased you,” she said, the Master’s turn of phrase. Probably something he’d said to her when he gave her the damn mission. “I didn’t mean.... You didn’t want me at all, did you?”

   Spike shook his head.

   “Then why did you keep...?”

   He couldn’t explain. He barely understood it himself. Apart from the fact that the Master might have killed someone else to take her place, which really was only a partial concern after the first few times, all the reasons for keeping up with Harmony had been too deep and confused for words. She was part of the role he had put on, the shell into which his true self hid. Everything that had been sweet to her in bed had been utter desperation. And he couldn’t begin to explain that.

   “Did you ever like me at all?”

   She had tears in her eyes.

   He sighed. He could only give her the truth. “If things were different, Harm. If I didn’t have this soul in the way, if I was looking for a fun time, if the Master wasn’t cracking his whip like I was some hired mule... you’d have been a sweet tumble for a time. And I know that. ‘S not your fault.”

   “I’m sorry.”

   Well, now. Seemed there was some humanity in the chit after all. Most vampires couldn’t really feel sorry. Not the way she was right now, seeming to mean it. Spike went looking for something, and found it, a leftover from the softness of their bed. He reached out and touched her cheek. “Keep it simple, Harm,” he said gently. “‘S what you’re best at.”

   He was only able to do it because in the end it didn’t matter to him. Or maybe the soul had left a pattern of behavior behind when it retreated, because it was still too buried to have initiated that on its own. If he still even had one. He turned and left her then, and he didn’t look back.

  
  


***

 

   “No, please,” Buffy told her... well, surrogate parents, really. Giles and Joyce were frowning at her, looking all worried. “Go. Have your romantic New Year’s dinner, enjoy yourselves.”

   “When we’d planned this, Buffy, we had assumed you’d be out with your friends,” Joyce said.

   “They’re busy. Angel and Jenny are still in LA, Cordy’s probably doing something with Riley, and Xander’s with Willow and Tara at the Magic Club ritual thing she planned in the library.”

   “Well, that’s not strictly a mystical ceremony,” Giles said. “I understood there was some kind of sleep-over party arranged.”

   “Yeah, the club was gonna stay in the dorms with the orphans after the ritual, drinking sparkling cider and waving noise makers around. They don’t really want the Guidance Counselor cramping their style.”

   “I think they do, Buffy,” Giles said. “I remember the group leader was looking for chaperones. And besides, you’re a bit... well  _ cooler _ than your average chaperone. You’re the slayer, and they know that.”

   “I _ am _ the slayer,” Buffy said. “And I have to patrol.”

   “I’m sure you could skip that for a night,” Giles said. “Or do a few quick circuits and come back.”

   “Giles. I didn’t want to go,” Buffy said honestly. She wasn’t sure if it was because this wasn’t really her Xander and Willow, or if it was because she was several years older than them, but she didn’t really  _ match _ . She felt like a wooden chess piece in amongst all the fancy new plastic ones. She could fill the role, she could make the moves, and everyone recognized her as the white queen, but in the end, you couldn’t miss that she was from some other set.

   She wondered if that was how Spike was feeling. Only he wasn’t just from some other set. He was on the wrong side, painted the wrong color. The white knight painted black....

   Or was he originally a black knight, and had just washed off his paint?

   Ugh, she didn’t even  _ play _ chess. She just about knew how the pieces moved, and that was it. Why was she trying to make crappy analogies when all that really mattered was that she felt out of place here still, and she missed having Spike on her side?

   “But we don’t want you to feel abandoned,” Joyce said.

_    Too late. _

   “I don’t,” Buffy said. She didn’t actually, not by them. “I actually want you to have your night out. Or, at your apartment or whatever,” she said. “I want you to sit and drink champagne and call each other pet names and... that is where I’m going to stop this inner video diary, because my imagination doesn’t really need to go there.”

   Joyce chuckled, and Giles put his arm through hers. It was...actually a nice thing to see. Buffy had thought at first that Giles and Joyce dating would give her the willies, but it seemed the reality of it filled her with a sense of peace whenever she saw them together. It looked right, somewhere in some visceral part of her mind. Her mother and her surrogate father, of course they were together.

   When the band candy incident happened in her own world she hadn’t wanted to think about it. Part of it was  _ old folks, getting it on, ew! _ but another part of it was her slayer life and her normal life mingling when she felt they shouldn’t. She was still trying to keep them very separate back then. Now she knew that was impossible. Life was life. She didn’t have two sides to her, she was all sides, she was everything at once. There wasn’t the slayer and the California girl, there was just herself, and she was all of it. And if that meant her mother and her watcher mingled too... okay.

   “Are you sure you’re going to be okay alone?”

   “I’m actually looking forward to it,” Buffy lied. She was only sort of lying. She didn’t really want to spend the evening with anyone. Except Spike. Who wasn’t there. So she might as well be alone.

   After Giles and Joyce headed off for Giles’ place, Buffy did a little housework, went on patrol, slayed a few wandering vamps, and then she did stop in at the high-school real quick, just to make sure the party hadn’t created another fiasco. It seemed not. Someone was playing Prince’s 1999 in one of the orphan’s dorm rooms, and perfectly normal Wicca chanting was going on in the library. Buffy only paused by both rooms before heading off campus and back home.

   Or to Revello Drive, anyway. It wasn’t home. It looked like home, smelled like home, but unless Spike was there, no place was home anymore.

   Buffy curled up in the living room with a bottle of wine and a crackling fire and decided to watch the ball drop in New York, several hours too early. She raised a glass privately to Faith, praying she was still okay in the demon district. Then she finished the wine. Then she opened another bottle, because hell, she was supposed to be celebrating, dammit. Right? Celebrate the year turning in this benighted hellscape of a universe of twisted memories gone bad to worse, and no wonder the Buffy who lived here had died, it sounded like a great life choice, fuck this place, more wine.

   She knew she was about a quarter of the way to drowning herself if she kept up with this. There was another bottle of wine somewhere, wasn’t there...?

   This was why she’d really been looking forward to Joyce and Giles going off without her. She could get drunk in peace. 

   It had been six nights since Christmas Eve, and she had spent four of those blasted off her ass after patrol. She didn’t have to work, after all, it being winter break. One night she’d managed to get pissed — as Spike would have called it — on Giles’s brandy at his apartment. Once she’d picked up a bottle at the 24/7, the Chandra demon looking on disapprovingly. Once she’d caught a bunch of relatively harmless demons dicing for kittens in the park, and they’d all stared at her in horror. She knew they weren’t man-eaters, and she probably wouldn’t have attacked them anyway, but she told them she’d let them off if they gave over their liquor. And once, quietly desperate, she’d actually gotten drunk secretly in her bedroom, which seemed  _ so wrong _ with Joyce asleep across the hall.

   She couldn’t help it. Spike was burning innocent victims and had stood her up on fucking  _ Christmas _ . Liquor felt like her only friend.

   She was waiting for Angel, she knew. Not that she couldn’t storm the vineyard herself, but if she did that, there was  _ zero  _ chance of keeping Spike’s cover from being blown, so... she was making herself wait for Angel. Because in her heart, she still trusted Spike. She still believed he was still undercover, that he hadn’t actually... he couldn’t possibly have really....

   A motorcycle revved by outside the house. Buffy swallowed the last of her glass and debated pouring another one. A bottle and a half on an empty stomach had given her quite the buzz already. Her lips were numb. Her hands felt heavy. Lying on this couch felt very good. But her mind was still buzzing, and maybe more wine would be good. It had to be good. It couldn’t be bad.

   And then came the knock.

   Motorcycle plus knock meant— 

   Buffy knocked over the half full bottle of wine as she scrambled for the front door. It splashed, landing on her white pants, and the rug, which, “Shit, shit, shit!” Buffy caught at the bottle, because didn’t she have slayer reflexes, wasn’t she supposed to be all graceful girl and shit? But no, apparently not with this much wine in her already, because all she did was drop the bottle off the side of the coffee table, and when she snatched it up it hit the coffee table itself, and broke, as if she’d smashed the thing over the prow of a ship or something, but fuck it, the door, and she stumbled around the corner and seized the door handle, and there, there he was, there actually was  _ Spike _ , and she made a move to jump forward and hug him, and he cringed backwards, which hurt for a second before she realized, oh, right, she had pretty much just come at him with a broken bottle in her fist.

   “Oh, um. I... broke the wine bottle, it... um... didn’t mean to....” Why the fuck was this so awkward? Spike was the person she  _ wasn’t _ awkward around! She threw it behind her, where it splintered against something, and she cringed, because damn, that was just more broken glass to clear up. She hoped Joyce would have some serious motherly acceptance of stained carpets and broken glass....

   Spike didn’t look good. He was thin, his cheekbones standing out stark on his sallow face. The softness to his nose and chin didn’t look right with him that thin, and his eyes were hollow in his face. His expression was cold. Dead. Hard. She had meant to go up and hug him, but she just stared in bewilderment. He looked so different....

   “Happy... new year,” she managed.

   “I found the scythe,” he said. No celebratory greetings. “It’s ready for you.”

   “It’s ready? It’s...”

   “You should... probably change,” he said, glancing at her wine-stained pants.

   “What?” she looked down. She looked a mess. She knew she hadn’t showered in days, and her hair was unbrushed, and... god, why did she have to get drunk? Why couldn’t she have looked perfect for him? Why was this so hard?

   She realized Spike was still just standing there. He should have come forward to hug her already, shouldn’t he? If she hadn’t been drunk, she probably would have had some idea of the right thing to say to him. Instead all she said was, “Why are you still just standing there?”

   He got an odd look on his face and held up his hand as if against glass. “Invite,” he said quietly.

   “Oh, fuck.” She’d forgotten it wasn’t the same house. “Come in, Spike.”

   Spike’s cold expression softened and he took a step forward.

   And stopped abruptly. He pushed a little, and then slowly leaned back. “Huh,” he said, not as if he was amused. More as if this was typical. “There’s still a barrier.” He looked down.

   “What? Hello? House? I invite Spike in,” she said again, reached out her hand and took hold of his, trying to pull him inside. It was like trying to pull something too big through a fence or something, she could take hold of him, but the moment she hit the threshold, his hand just wouldn’t go any farther. “What the hell is...? Oh, god, it’s not my house!” she realized. “It’s Mom’s. Or... Joyce’s. She could invite you... but she’s not....”

   Oh, fuck, this was the worst possible start to this! Buffy was nearly in tears, as Spike was barred from the house on Revello Drive  _ again _ . She knew that was a sore point with him (even if he admitted he was still pretty evil back then, and even if she had legitimately been more scared of him in love with her than she ever had been when he’d just wanted to kill her.) How could he not be invited in?

   “‘S all right, love,” he said. “I’ll wait for you by the tree.”

   “Spike!” Buffy called out after him, but he didn’t turn around. He just disappeared into the shadows, and a moment later, she saw a tiny flame in the darkness as he lit a cigarette.

   Fuck. Something was wrong. Not just time and liquor and stupid cross-universal invite clauses. This was something serious. The dead girl, maybe, or the scythe itself, or... or... she didn’t know. Something was seriously wrong. Part of Buffy wanted to throw caution to the winds, jump over the porch railing, and throw herself into Spike’s arms. But....

   He didn’t seem to want that

_ The mission is what matters. _ Right. Sober up, shake off the booze, get into slaying gear. Come on, Buffy. Focus.

   Don’t think about how his eyes looked. You can’t think about that right now.


	32. Chapter 32

 

    Clem was really a good sport about being held hostage in his own apartment. “Oh, yeah,” he was saying to Amanda when Faith came out of the shower. “Yeah, Daniels didn’t want his voice credited as KITT, ‘cause the car was supposed to be its own personality. For the longest time, I really thought the car talked. I mean, I knew of a Takwin Homunculus which could talk on its own, and it sure as hell seemed a lot less capable than KITT!”

   “Were you disappointed when you found out it wasn’t really the car?”

   “Well, you know, this was the eighties,” Clem said. “There was a lot of discouraging things happening then, you got kind of used to disappointments. Not so much as now, of course, with the internet shattering every possible fantasy....”

   “You can use the shower now,” Faith said, drying her hair.

   “Oh, cool,” Amanda said. “Thanks for the trivia lesson, Clem.”

   “Any time, Mandy.”

   Faith took over the seat on the couch, still rubbing at her head.

   “Think you could untie me?” Clem asked.

   “Yeah, gimme a sec.” She rubbed some moisturizer into her legs.

   “No rush,” Clem said, easing back more comfortably into his chair. His left arm was bound to his side. His right arm was half loose, enough that he could reach the remote and scratch at his face and feed himself, but not so loose that he could untie his other arm, or his legs, which were bound to the recliner.

   “Which episode are we on?”

   “Uh... we just started season three,” Clem said. “I’m missing a few episodes out of that one. You want me to rewind?”

   “Nah, I’m good,” Faith said.

   She really hadn’t planned on keeping a demon hostage for this long, but she really couldn’t let him go, no matter how nice he was. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust him — she was pretty sure he meant well — but even if he did promise not to tell the Master or the other vampires she and Amanda were here, and even if she was ninety-five percent sure he meant that, there was still a five percent chance he’d sell them out, and in that five percent scenario, she and Amanda died. Which meant Clem couldn’t leave. And they couldn’t leave, either, not without choosing to kill him.

   Whenever Faith was sleeping or showering or had to go out to check if Angel had returned, she tied him up with Amanda on watch. She didn’t bother gagging him, because he wasn’t trying to yell the alert or anything, and she trusted Amanda enough not to let him loose. He was very understanding about the whole thing, and kept being grateful she hadn’t killed him. “No, no, I get it,” he kept saying. “The Slayer kills demons, I don’t expect anything else. Thanks for not doing it yet. You’re being really nice.”

   Faith was really waiting for Angel. She knew she could trust him to take Clem out of the demon district and get him set up somewhere else. She was pretty sure Clem wouldn’t go out of his way to screw her over if Angel got him a set up somewhere in Cleveland or something. But she couldn’t trust him to leave on his own. She’d told Clem her plans for that. He’d said it seemed fair, in exchange for, you know, not slaying him. In the meantime, Clem’s apartment was full of food, had hot water, and a couch she and Amanda could take turns on. It was like paradise.

   Until someone knocked on the door.

   Faith froze in the act of untying Clem. “Who’s that?” she whispered, low enough she was pretty sure the average vampire wouldn’t be able to hear through the door.

   “I don’t know. Oh, damn, is it New Year’s Eve?”

   “I don’t know!” Faith hissed. “Yeah, maybe. I think so.”

   “Damn. It’s probably my buddies looking for me, I had a poker game scheduled. Dave and Gu-gik’ulduk and I have one every Thursday, we were gonna crack open a few Persians and make a night of it.”

   Faith didn’t know what to do. “Pretend you’re not home,” she whispered.

   “TV’s on,” Clem hissed. “They’ll know something’s up.”

   “Shit!”

   Clem turned and looked at her. “Look, I like the kid. I don’t wanna see you two get hurt. Do you trust me enough to go cancel?”

   Faith’s heart was pounding. She really didn’t want to kill Clem if she could help it. If his friends raided the place, he was probably just as up the crick as she was, and he knew it. Shit. Well, what choice did she have?

   “Do it,” she whispered. “If they attack, though....”

   Clem nodded. “Yeah, yeah, it’s cool. We can sell it.” Clem untied his lower extremities and sauntered up to the door. He checked to make sure Faith wasn’t visible, and opened it with a grin. “Gu-gik’ulduk! Hey! Oh, no, man, you don’t wanna get too close. I forgot to call you. Can’t make it this evening.”

   “Well, how come?” said the demon at the door, a slight growl to his voice.

   “I’m having this cough thing, and I think I’m getting a rash. I mean, seriously, whole strips flaking off, and, I’m....” He artfully tilted his head back, and let loose a sneeze that had all his snakes flapping out like party-poppers. The other demon made a startled noise. “Oh, man, sorry about that. I’ve picked up this sneezing thing...? Anyway. I figured you and Dave should just go on without me. I’ll owe you a Persian or two next week, how’s that?”

   “Well, we’ll miss you, Clem,” the demon whose name Faith could not begin to pronounce said. “You, ah... you keep it clean, yeah?”

   “Oh, yeah. Yeah, of course,” Clem said. “Talk at you later.”

   “O-okay,” said the demon. “Bye.”

   And Clem closed the door. He paused a moment before the sounds of footsteps went down the hall, and grinned. “We did it!”

   “Yeah,” Faith said. But the encounter bothered her.

   “How about I make us some mac-and-cheese?” Clem asked, heading into the kitchenette. “We’re running a bit low. I haven’t been able to hit the store... you okay with only some parsley for color? I think I have some in the freezer still....”

   “Yeah, that’d be great,” Faith said. “If you could... sort of skip the skinned mice this time?”

   “I’ll only put them in my portion,” Clem said. “Sorry about that. Forgot humans are squeamish. They weren’t always. I have this great recipe for dormouse from my friend Lucianus? Got it right from the kitchen of Caesar himself.”

   He went on, while Faith knocked on the bathroom door. “Mandy? Time to get out.”

   She heard the shower cut off. “How come?”

   “Just get dressed.”

   “O-okay,” Amanda said nervously. A little while later she came out, just as Clem was setting the table.

   “Put on your shoes,” Faith said quietly.

   “Why?”

   “I just want you to be ready to run,” Faith said. “We had a visitor. Probably not a problem, but....”

   Amanda’s eyes went wide. She laced up her shoes and loaded up her pockets with supplies. Her period was almost over, though, after three days. They tended to be light the first few times, small favors.

   They spent the rest of the evening on edge, Amanda never letting her guard down, Faith never being more than an arm’s reach from her supply backpack, which she had loaded up with non-perishables from Clem’s cupboards. “Really, it’s not gonna be a problem!” Clem said to them, for what seemed like the eightieth time as they hovered over the Monopoly board. Faith hadn’t wanted the TV turned back on. She wanted to be able to hear clearly. “Gu-gik’ulduk just looked freaked out. The guy hates germs. And I’m sure Dave wasn’t using his X-ray vision at all.”

   Both Amanda and Faith stared at him at that.

   “X-ray vision?” Faith said.

   “Well, yeah,” Clem said. “He’s a tupock demon, didn’t you know that...?”

   He trailed off at the horrified looks on their faces.

   “We’re leaving,” Faith said to Amanda. “Clem...?”

   “Oh, hell,” Clem said plaintively. “Does this mean I’m dead?”

   Faith really really didn’t want to kill him.

   “If this Dave’s already seen us, the cat’s out of the bag already, isn’t it?” Amanda said quietly.

   She had a point there.

   “Fine. You can live,” Faith said.

   “Yay!” Amanda said with a bit of a perky bounce, which surprised Faith. It was the first indication she’d had that Mandy was actually a kid underneath all her horror and grief. She had nightmares Faith had had to wake her from, where she’d murmur,  _ I’m not a rabbit. I’m not a rabbit _ . Faith wondered what her personality would have been like if all she hadn’t been put through so much hell. She seemed like a really sweet kid... or like she could have been. She ran up and hugged Clem, who hugged her back warmly.

   “Sorry,” Clem said ruefully. “Really didn’t occur to me Dave’s powers would spook you.”

   “Okay, whatever, let’s go!” Faith said. It was night, on New Year’s Eve, worst possible time to leave their safe nest. She tried to assess the closest route to the sewers....

   It didn’t really matter. There were over twenty vampires running up the stairs to catch them when she got to the hall, and once they’d dusted their way past them, there were easily another hundred in street. Well, she thought as the Master’s ranks closed in around the two of them. It was probably going to be someone other than Amanda who was called next, anyway.

***

   Buffy hugged her lover, and felt as if she was holding a corpse.

   She knew in a way she technically was. Vampires were room temperature, but unlike a normal corpse which was basically a bag of water, she always figured vampires were fairly inert. Might have been why they dusted when the demonic magics were corrupted, either through contact with wood to the heart, or through a severed spinal column. In any case, Spike (and Angel, and other vampires, she assumed) never leached her own heat away, instead reflecting it, like holding onto a great big pillow or something. She privately thought of him like a teddy bear.

   But this time he felt like a corpse.

   His body was there beneath that black coat, mobile and familiar, but he felt dead. There was no reaction, no... no spark. He seemed more dead than he had before the soul, more dead than he had when injured, almost more dead than he had seemed when she still thought him nothing more than dust beneath the Sunnydale crater. At least then she’d had a final vision of him in the midst of heroic sacrifice. Now he was just cold, cold, cold.

   She didn’t know what to say.

   He pulled the motorcycle up behind the sign at Shadow Valley Winery and Buffy reluctantly let go. “Are you sure you want to do this, just us?” Spike said. “There’s like fifteen vampires in there.”

   “The day I can’t handle fifteen minions is the day I’m not fit to be a slayer,” Buffy said.

   “That would be a bad day,” Spike said, but there was no emotion in his voice. Buffy wanted to grab him and shake him, tell him to just look at her, properly. But like Spike couldn’t enter Joyce’s house, there still seemed to be a barrier between them, and she just... couldn’t reach through. Not yet.... Maybe after they got the scythe, and they had a moment....

   They didn’t have a moment. “Oh, bollocks,” Spike muttered. Just as they came onto the winery proper, a pair of vans came racing down the gravel driveway. They had to have been about a mile or two behind them the whole trip. “Go get your pretty, slayer. I’ll field this.”

   “You’ll....”

   Spike pushed her into the torchlit winery, and strode out to meet the vans. She thought at first he was going to stay undercover, but the first person to leap out of the van shouted at Spike. “You! Soulbound!” It was some thug in a cowboy hat. “You left the bitch alive!”

   “Which bitch was that, then?” Spike said.  

   “The Anointed One’s gift!” he shouted. “Do you know how hard we had to work to get that damn kid?” He pulled out a six shooter and —

   “No!” Buffy shouted.

   Spike staggered back, shot three times in the chest. He went down to his knees as Buffy leaped right out to help him. “Dammit, get the scythe!” he growled at her.

   “Nothing doing,” Buffy said. “We fight together, or not at all!”

   “God dammit!” Spike pushed Buffy behind him as the cowboy shot again. “We already know a bullet can kill you, bitch!”

   “It could mess up your brainpan, too!” Buffy shouted back at him. This was true. Demonic energies aside, if half his brain was blown out the back of his head, there was no intellectually coming back from that.

   He growled. “Fine,” he vamped up, standing ready in defense. “Then we bloody well stand together.”

***

 

   Harmony wasn’t really surprised to see him fighting side by side with the slayer. She’d sort of been expecting it when he took his leave of her. She was in their bedroom, trying to figure out what to pack. She kept going back and forth, and the suitcase kept being too full, so she’d take stuff out, and then would change her mind, and.... Well, she couldn’t leave her Sunnydale cheerleading outfit behind. Seriously, she’d died in that, didn’t that give it some sentimental value or something? And this silk. She wasn’t as rich as Cordelia, she’d never been able to afford silk like that, and it was so much easier when you could just kill the clerk and take the stuff off the hangers. She couldn’t leave that, either.

   And this unicorn, that was the one she and Spike had... and this pair of designer jeans, why couldn’t she... and she couldn’t leave her Harmony pillow, that thing was...!

   And then the fighting had started outside, and she knew she’d missed her chance to leave by dithering. Which was typical of her, she supposed. She opened the paint spackled window and looked out to see her beautiful blondie bear, side by side with the elder Buffy Summers, and... damn. God dammit they fought well together! She knew nothing about fighting, and even she couldn’t miss it. It was like watching one of those stupid Jackie Chan movies, like her old boyfriend Chad used to make her watch. They leapt, they spun, they rolled over each other, they used vampires as weapons to take out even more vampires.

   And then a bullet shot through the window past her head, and Harmony decided that vampire or not, bloodlust or no, violent tendencies aside, she was gonna get out of the line of fire.

   She headed down to the basement, just as the makeshift door to the winery splintered open, and Buffy and Spike came backing in. “We’re not safe in here, love,” Spike muttered as Buffy started rolling a big old empty wine barrel in front of the door. “There’s more minions below.”

   “Yeah, but we can bottleneck these guys,” she said. “I’ll take them down, you watch my back.”

   Harmony didn’t want to be one of the ones “watched” by Spike. Dammit. She was going to have to find some place to hide. Even if Spike didn’t want to kill her (and she was pretty sure he didn’t, or he’d have done it before he left) Buffy probably would, because slayer, vampire, slayers kill vampires, expect apparently if they had souls, whatever that did for them. It just seemed like cheating or something to her.

   Anyway. He headed down into the basement, where all the rest of the boys (and Peaches, who might as well have been a boy. She looked like one, anyway) were busy playing Tablero with shots of blood. It was a weird drinking/dicing game, which looked a bit like checkers, and it kind of annoyed her, because _ hello _ she was trying to find a place to  _ hide! _

   “There’s a battle upstairs,” she said.

   “So?” said Peaches.

   “So, it’s carnage. I thought all you minion types liked carnage.”

   “Yeah, well.” Peaches threw back a shot of blood. “We like  _ our _ carnage.”

   Harmony rolled her eyes. The minions didn’t respect her. It wasn’t fair, here she was the boss’s girlfriend, and they just played around like it didn’t matter what she said. Didn’t that make her the vampire equivalent of homecoming princess or something? Particularly since the boss was Big Bad Spikey, Master’s own bloodline and everything....

   She was about to tell them all this, but then a vampire with a stake in his chest rolled down the stairs after her, and dusted at the landing with a scream, and suddenly the minions abandoned their drinking game and headed up to join the carnage. “Finally,” Harmony said.

   She retreated further, going into the tunnel, because that was the only place that wasn’t just wide-open spaces for Slayer Stakeage, and she did find a hollow, but... it was muddy, and she didn’t want to go in there. She headed back up, but as she did, she saw the path blocked by the slayer herself, and oh... shit! Harmony headed back up the passage, and then realized she was an idiot. The commercial oil torches were gonna be a dead give away....

   She blew out all but one of them, and would have gotten that last one, except she could tell that Buffy was rounding the last corner then, and....

   Harmony hunkered down in the darkest corner and held her breath, pretending she was dead.

   Buffy came into the final passage slowly, stake in hand, and looked to the wall, where that ugly red fire axe was sticking out.

   “Who’s there?” Buffy asked suddenly. She looked around the darkened tunnel. “I know there’s a vampire here, I can sense you!” She took hold of the torch and threw it onto the ground. The can broke, and the oil flared up, and Harmony knew she was revealed. She vamped, feeling safer that way.

   “Spike’s not gonna let you get away with this!” Harmony said, already knowing she was on crumbling sand with that tack. But she didn’t know what else to say. “You won’t be able to destroy the scythe!”

   “Destroy it?” Buffy said. She glanced to the wall, where the scythe stuck out like some kind of lever. “You mean this?”

   “Yeah,” Harmony said. “Go ahead and touch it, I dare you! It’s made to kill slayers like you, and my Spike says—”

   Buffy had lifted the weapon easily out of the wall and spun it in her hands like she was some kind of majorette with a baton. Well, shit.

   Harmony backed nervously away from her. She’d played her last card, and she’d already known it was a bad one. “Uh... don’t... don’t slay me,” she said with a bit of a whimper. “Uh... please?”

   “Oh, I think I just might,” she said. She grinned. “I like being a slayer.”

   Harmony let her vamp face down. She didn’t like holding it for long anyway, she thought it made her look ugly. “Well, fine. You’re just a big hypocrite, you are. I’ve never killed anyone at all.” Well, unless she counted the store clerks, but those  _ totally _ didn’t count, because, you know, price gouging.

   “Oh.” She advanced on Harmony, and it gave her the willies. God, she was scary now that Harmony was a vampire! Every part of her was saying  _ run _ ! “So you’re not some selfish, greedy, fashion obsessed little vampire? You’re not working for the Master? You’re not just looking for some new kill?”

   “No! I’m only Spike’s girlfriend!” Harmony cried out.

   The slayer froze. Her expression went blank for a brief moment. Could it be? Could it be they didn’t just fight together, they were...?

   Harmony didn’t have time for that thought to hatch, ‘cause the slayer had lunged forward and grabbed her by the hair. “His what?”

   “Just... just his girlfriend,” she whimpered. “Just... just... please, don’t... the Master... he assigned me to him, to be his consort instead of Dru-zilla, and... and....” She stopped and looked up at her. “I’m sorry.”

   Buffy searched her face for a long, long time. Harmony wasn’t one to try and read deep emotion in anyone, but even she could see that there was something in the slayer’s eyes, something more than duty or blood lust. Or, dust-lust, anyway.

   “You were Spike’s girlfriend,” she said quietly. “You were sharing his bed.”

   Harmony opened her mouth to answer, and then really didn’t want to at the look on her face. The slayer shook her hard, and the word “Yes!” fell from her lips.

   Buffy dropped her then, and Harmony fell to the ground, gasping. She didn’t think she’d been this afraid while she was being killed!

   “Get out of here,” Buffy said darkly.

   Harmony blinked. “W-what?”

   “I said get out of here!” Buffy yelled at her. Harmony started to move, and then Buffy twisted her scythe — oh, fuck it  _ was _ her scythe, wasn’t it? It  _ was _ made for slayers, but not to kill them! Spike had been completely lying the whole — and touched the pointy end to Harmony’s breast. Harmony froze as the wooden stake end threatened her heart above her tube top. She stared wide eyed at Buffy, terrified. She was an inch from dust, she knew….

   But she didn’t go for the dust. She only snicked the stake down Harmony’s skin, and then did it again, across it. She had just drawn a cross on Harmony’s breast, with that... scythe thing.... Oh... oh, god it burned! She screamed. It hurt like hell! She was sure it was going to burn right through to her heart and turn her to dust and ash and....

   And the burning faded. She glanced down. The wound was new and angry looking, and yeah, it looked more like a burn mark than a scratch, but it was no longer a perfect cross anymore, and it didn’t look like it was going to keep burning now....

   “That’s a reminder,” Buffy said. “You say you haven’t killed? That’s a promise. You start killing, and that thing will eat right into your heart, you hear me? You bite someone, hit someone, fine, you do what you gotta do, but you kill... if you kill!”

   “I won’t!” Harmony cried. “I won’t, I swear I won’t!”

   “Go!” Buffy shouted at her.

   Harmony bolted. She bolted up the stairs where piles of dust told her Spike had taken out most of the other minions. She bolted into the bedroom she had shared with Spike. She paused just long enough to grab her suitcase — whatever was in it would just have to do — and then she bolted out the window, dragging it behind her, ignoring the battle royale that Spike was still engaged in near the vans. He threw one of the minions into the engine block, and the car horn started to wail, and Harmony kept going. He performed an exquisite roll off the ceiling of the other van, to slam one of the minion’s heads in the rolling door, and she kept going. The Slayer came bursting out of the winery and started taking the heads off the other vampires, and — damn! That scythe was so totally made to kill vampires — Harmony kept going. She fled into the derelict grape vines and across the field to a shed she knew was by the school bus route. She could hunker down in there when the sun came up, and then the next night she could hit the highway, get some jerk to pick her up as a hitchhiker, suck him down, and then....

   Oh, wait. The cross. She looked down. Man, that thing was ugly. She wasn’t sure if it was true that the thing would get all burny again if she started killing, but... the idea kinda worried her. So. Okay, maybe she wouldn’t kill him. She could manage that. Maybe she should head down to LA, she’d heard there was a thriving sucker community down there, with plenty of victims willing to pay you for a gentle bite. Though you had to be good looking to make it as a sucker... of course, Harmony  _ was _ good looking, except for this ugly scar. What the hell was that bitch thinking, marking her up like Zorro?

   Though, actually... once it healed a bit... it was probably going to turn out kind of pretty. Distinctive. And really, that might actually draw certain guys. All marked up with the cross, making her holy. Pure. Hey, the holy sister, she could sell that. She could sell a lot of things. But she wouldn’t kill. Just in case.

   Unless some jerk really needed it, of course. She was sure the cross would make an exception, in  _ those _ cases.


	33. Chapter 33

 

    “Is Dru okay?”

   “Yeah,” Spike said, coming down into Angel’s livingroom. “Apparently Angel gave her a big pet store cage full of like twenty rats before he left. They’re all dead now, but they kept fresh for longer than blood would have. I wish someone had told me Angel had been gone this long.”

   “Well. You weren’t around,” Buffy said. It wasn’t pointed. It wasn’t pained. But she had said it, and Spike wished to god he felt hurt by it. He didn’t.

   “I don’t think he meant to be gone this long,” Buffy continued when all he did was turn his head away. “I’m actually getting a little worried. I mean... Jenny’s people didn’t really like him much.”

   “Well. If they dusted him, it’s about what he deserves,” Spike said.

   Buffy didn’t say that that was cold. She didn’t say anything. She’d been very quiet since she’d come back up with the scythe. He’d sent her down to get it, because really, the fight was the only catharsis he’d had, and he needed to just keep hitting something. She’d come up, they’d cleared out the last of the vamps, and they’d left. He didn’t ask about Harmony. He assumed Buffy had killed her, but he didn’t really want to know.

_  You left the bitch alive.  _ They’d caught Amanda. _ The Anointed One’s gift. _ She was probably dead by now. All that work, all that long, horrible night, he’d abandoned Buffy, he’d put himself through hell, he’d tortured that poor, poor girl, all for nothing…. Did that mean Faith had been caught, too? Was  _ that _ his fault? Was this world’s slayer’s death on his hands, too? Had he finally killed his third slayer?

   “Did you get through to Giles?”

   “Yeah,” Buffy said. “I arranged a full Scooby meeting at the library. It’s time to end this.”

   “Yeah,” Spike said. “It really is.”

   Some of what Drusilla had said to him upstairs was lingering in his head. Twisted madness, absolute nonsense, but was some of it prophecy?  _ It’s all coming together, _ she’d said.  _ All the threads in the tapestry, warp and weft, wending their way. We’re only a pair of loose ends, dearie. Snip us free. Snip us free. _

   It bothered him.

   They were just getting back on the motorcycle when Angel’s car pulled into the driveway. He stopped when he saw them there, Buffy with the scythe on her back. “What’s this? Is that your weapon?” Angel said, getting out.

   “Yeah, we got it,” Spike said.

   “That’s really good news,” Angel said. “Is there a plan?”

   “Heading to the library to do that now,” Buffy said. “We could use another fighter.”

   “You know I’m in. Just let me go in and check on Dru.”

   “I just did that, mate,” Spike said. “She’s set.”

   Angel looked relieved.

   “Where’s Jenny?” Buffy asked.

   “She’s still in LA,” Angel said. “She... really likes it in LA. She’s thinking of moving there. She hasn’t decided yet if she’s going to finish out the school year here or not. She knows Sunnydale is understaffed, but....”

   “But it’s not really her choice to be here,” Buffy finished. “How did you talk her family into setting her free?”

   “It’s a long...”

   “Here.” Spike cut him off. “You take Buffy and her pointy, I’ll meet you both at the library.” He mounted the motorcycle.

   “Spike!”

   Spike pretended he didn’t hear her. He gunned the machine and barreled down the road.

   Buffy didn’t know yet how disgraced he was. She didn’t know the weight on his dead soul. She didn’t know how far under the Big Bad he had fallen. He was done being evil, he didn’t want to be evil. But he knew now, no matter how much he loved Buffy, no matter how many monsters he fought away, no matter how many puppies and kittens and little girls he saved, he was always going to be in the shadows.

   And Buffy couldn’t live there. He’d seen what happened when she tried.

   No. He was going to have to tell her, all of it. Or enough of it so that she’d believe him. But it could wait until after this battle, couldn’t it? It could wait. It had to wait. He had to kill the Master, didn’t he? He had to see that bugger dust!

   And then he had to leave. A loose thread.... A pair of loose threads....

   She knew. Dru had seen it. It made sense. His own Dru didn’t want him, but this one? This one needed someone, yeah? Someone to tend her, to keep her contained, or at least keep her from killing. That had to be possible, right? He could stand over her twenty four hours a day, chain her up to sleep, keep her from murdering. They could travel. He could be hers again. So what if it wouldn’t make him happy? So what if the memory of Buffy would haunt him? It was something he could do after Buffy knew she had to leave him.

   Because she had to know. Once she knew the truth... they’d both know she had to leave.

 

***

 

   The sun was rising as Buffy and Angel made it to the high school. Willow, Tara, and Xander were already there, of course, and there was Giles’ car. He’d picked up the phone sounding half asleep — yes, it was  _ half asleep _ not  _ hoarse with passion! _ — and he’d agreed to head to the library, leaving Joyce safe and sound at home. Joyce had grabbed the phone then, and demanded Buffy be careful. It was nice hearing her voice, but Buffy had no intention of dying this day.

   She’d gotten hold of Cordy, too, and there was her car. Where was Spike’s motorcycle? Where the hell was he?

   Whatever. She gripped the scythe and looked over at Angel as he walked beside her into the school. She kept stealing glances at him and then turning away. She was glad she was in love with Spike. She was glad she had no questions there. She was also very, very glad that she knew this wasn’t her world and she had to go home. Because what Angel had told her on the way to the school, shyly, sounding embarrassed and confused and a little self-effacing, made her realize that this Angel was quite a bit more worthy of love than the one in her own world. Maybe it was because he’d never lost his soul. Maybe it was the grief itself that had done it. But this Angel was truly a good person. Or at least he was truly trying to be, more than her own Angel ever had.

   It touched her.

   And hell, he was being a lot more talkative than Spike had been all night.

   She closed her eyes and tried not to think about Harmony. It didn’t matter. It  _ shouldn’t _ matter, anyway. Here she was throwing up her hands in exasperation at Cordy over Xander’s wildly overblown cheating kiss, why the hell couldn’t she take her own advice and just accept that it was just a thing that happened? Under extreme circumstances that... that....

   God. Spike had….

   No. Not now. She had gone from blaming herself to blaming him to blaming fate at least a hundred times since Harmony had dropped the word  _ girlfriend _ . She knew she should have dusted her. She knew it was likely that someone, somewhere, would regret the fact that she did not. But the Harmony in her own world had managed to become... well, just as evil as she had always been, but she wasn’t a killer. All it had taken was some incentive not to be, and Harmony had switched to pig blood and social machinations rather than slaughter and mayhem. Probably not much different than if she’d stayed human. 

   Buffy hoped the cross would be a reasonable reminder — she hadn’t been sure it would work at all — but she was pretty sure the scythe’s powers would see to it she kept the scar for a while, demonic healing or no. As for the burning... actually the burning had surprised her. She hadn’t realized it would quite do that. Truthfully if the burn hadn’t warped the straight lines of the cross a little, she figured it actually might have burned right through Harmony’s torso.

   But the real reason she hadn’t killed Harmony lay in Spike himself. What if he really liked her? Buffy was pretty sure he didn’t love her, but he had kept going back to her over and over again in her own world. Maybe it would hurt him to know she was dust...?

   She hadn’t been willing to hurt him like that. Not after all he’d been through....

   They pushed through the door of the library to find Willow in tears. She was sitting on the table, sobbing openly, and Xander stood by her side, his arm on her shoulder. Giles sat on a chair before her, her hand in his, saying, “It will be all right, Willow. The manifestation wasn’t real.”

   “I know, but... but I couldn’t... I couldn’t!”

   Cordelia was sitting on the library check out desk, in the spot Angel usually liked to sit, looking bored. Tara, to Buffy’s surprise, was nervously standing a little away from the others, near the book scanner. “Everything all right?” Buffy asked.

   “I-I keep t-telling her it’s-s not the end of the world, but she’s... really scared.” She looked down. “You got the wrong person, Buffy. I c- I can’t do this.”

   “Do what? Be Willow’s magical and moral support? I already know you can. What’s wrong?”

   “Willow claims she failed her exam,” Cordy said bluntly. “She won’t shut up about it.”

   “What exam? What are you talking about?”

   “Her or-ordeal,” Tara said. “That’s what the other kids call it. I t-told them it wasn’t absolute, that a failure didn’t mean  _ failure _ , it just means try again, but... Wi-Willow got scared.”

   “What scared her?”

   “Apparently Tara has had the Magic Club performing a self-controlling ritual,” Giles said. “Quite a skilled one, actually, where each member of the club must summon and then contain a manifestation of their own magics. So far all of the members of the club have succeeded with flying colors.”

   “But not you?” Buffy asked Willow.  

   She only sobbed again.

   “They’re all... really intense to the person summoning them,” Tara said. “It-it hasn’t been fun, but it’s been working. Amy’s aura went from a forest green to this shining yellow, and Jonathan went from navy blue up to this cerulean. The black was fading from all of them once they faced their own demons, like Amy’s mom, but... but....”

   “Oh, shit.” Buffy rolled her eyes. She marched up to Willow and snapped her fingers in her face. Her impulse was actually to slap her, but she figured that was a little much. She was tense, and Spike didn’t seem to be here, but that didn’t give her an excuse to hit a burgeoning witch, in hysterics or not. “Oi!” she said, channeling Spike again. “Snap out of it.”

   Willow looked up, still sniffling.

   “What did you see? Black hair, all veiny, eyes like death?”

   “She was a killer,” Willow said. “A destroyer of worlds!”

   “Yeah, I know,” Buffy said. “I met her. She was a bitch.”

   Willow stared at her. “That’s... that’s what’s inside me?”

   “It could be.”

   “But if that’s what’s inside me... I don’t want that inside me!” She burst into tears again. “I can’t do magic anymore. I have to... I have to give it up, I have to....”

   “That doesn’t work, either,” Buffy said. “I know, my Willow tried it. When the break comes, someone dies, grief strong enough, the magic just leaps back. Tara, come over here? Giles? You might as well get in on this, too. See this scythe?” Buffy said. “This thing reaches back through time through the entire lineage of the slayers. Now Willow, the girl you were when I met you was stage one. The girl you are now, is sort of stage... I don’t know, three. The dark hair black-eyed bitch is stage ten, and it looks like it doesn’t go any deeper than that, but it does. Tara? I know this scythe, or the one in my universe, at least, was a power source strong enough to get Willow to find that level eleven. We don’t need to get there, but can we pull up some memory of it? Through me or something?”

   “Did you see it?” Tara asked.

   “I arranged for it,” Buffy said. “It was pretty intense, I sure feel like I saw it. I was kind of fighting at the time, but the power went through me, too. Could you...?”

   “Buffy, how are you making up a spell like this on the fly?” Giles asked.

   “Willow — my Willow — used to do shit like this all the time,” Buffy said. “Besides, Chosen One, I have insights. Tara?”

   “Um... yeah... yeah, I think... if it’s just an echo of what went through you that you’re trying to pull up, not the actual power....”

   “Get on with it, we have like five minutes,” Buffy said. “Faith’s still in the damn demon district.”

   With Buffy holding the scythe, Tara put her hand on the blade, and Giles on the stake end. Buffy nodded at Willow, who sniffled, and then put her hands on Buffy’s.

   And then she gasped. Tara wasn’t trying to manifest an illusion, she had only summoned a vision into Willow’s head, but Buffy got a flash of it, too. A goddess of light, streaming the power of purity and animation, the strength of women, access to the streams of magic itself. The vision broke, and Willow stared, awestruck, at Buffy.

   “Keep trying your ritual, or your ordeal,” Buffy said. “No matter how many times you fail it, when you grab it and succeed? That’s what’s beyond it.”

   “You can fail a hundred times, Willow,” Tara said earnestly. “That doesn’t mean you’ll never get there.”

   “Frankly with a power that strong I’d have been shocked and a little frightened if you  _ had _ succeeded at the first,” Giles said, cleaning his glasses. He looked a little shaken. “I am... truly sorry I had not recognized the depth of your powers until now. I should have sent you to be trained fully.”

   “You still can,” Buffy said. “They’ll take her in Devon, send her for summer vacation or something. In the meantime, I have a vampire to kill! Has anyone seen Spike?”

   “Spike, no. Was he supposed to be here?”

   Buffy’s grip on the scythe clenched. “I... I thought so. I... I thought he was coming....”

   “Thought who was?” came an unctuous British voice.

   Buffy turned to look, and almost groaned. Quentin bloody Travers, head of the Watcher’s Council, and he had brought what looked like half the damn Council with him. That was the one who had a bit of a crush on Spike, the woman called Lydia, and oh, god, there was Wesley, looking like some kind of expensive dildo. True to form, Cordelia perked up when she saw him, which made Buffy laugh, since she knew those two ultimately had no chemistry beyond a mutual affiliation for expensive jackets.

   “Who are these fellows?” Cordy asked.

   “We are representatives from the Council of Watchers,” said Quentin Travers. “And you, Buffy Summers, don’t belong here.”

    “No kidding! That’s what I’ve been trying to tell everyone. You don’t exactly belong here, either. Giles, what they hell are they doing here?”

   “I’m not sure,” Giles said. “I didn’t receive a call....”

   “We had been hoping to catch you alone,” Quentin said to him. “If we could step into your office—”

   “No, we can stop and talk about this right here,” Buffy said. “What did you want?”

   Quentin looked blank, and then his head lifted a fraction. “We want to return you to your own universe,” he said. “Or at least get you out of this one.”

   “Get me out of this one?” Buffy said.

   “Indeed. It is against the natural order to have more than one slayer present in the world. The circumstance could cause a disturbing imbalance and perhaps bring about a destabilization with the very function of the Slayer herself. It is imperative that we purge the system, and send you on your way. Our seers have determined that the best course of action is to remove you from the field of play before such time as the current slayer turns eighteen, and faces her next milestone.”

   “So... let me translate that. You plan on opening up some dimensional portal and shoving me through it, regardless of where it might send me, getting me out of the way so that you can torture Faith for her Cruciamentum in peace? No thanks. Angel? Eat one of them.”

   Angel took a step forward, and Lydia grabbed Travers by the shoulder. “That’s  _ Angelus! _ ”

   Two of the Watchers — or rather their bodyguards, Buffy realized — whipped out stakes and crosses, brandishing them menacingly at Angel.

   The trouble was, Buffy didn’t have time for this. It would have been nice to see a showdown between Angel and the Council. It would have been nice to indulge in magical girl talk with Willow and Tara. It would even have been nice to shove Cordy and Xander in the book cage for an hour and see what came of it — the two were glancing shyly at each other when they each thought the other wasn’t looking — but in the end, she knew there was only one thing she could do.

   Get to the mission.

   “Travers, the Council is done,” Buffy said. “You’re a bunch of cold-hearted murderers with wet-works teams and poisons, who like to torture little girls and get off on doing it. There are no more secrets. Willow? Have you posted the manifesto?”

   “What? Oh, yeah.”

   “Right. The Master came out of the shadows, Travers, which means the Slayer did, too. Faith’s identity is known.”

   Travers glared at Giles. “You didn’t tell us that!”

   “It didn’t seem pertinent in any of our communications,” Giles muttered.

   “Since the Slayer is known, the Watchers are out, too,” Buffy said. “And without the Slayer, you guys are nothing. You’re a bunch of arrogant, secretive stuffed shirts in a fancy building with a bunch of moldering old books. I’d disband you if I didn’t think the potentials actually needed training before they were called. Don’t!” she said, holding up her hand with the scythe in it as Travers started to speak. “I know how to do it. I have more than enough power to do it. Angel? Willow? Hell, all of you. Come here.”

   The whole Scooby team surrounded Buffy; Angel, Willow, Tara, Giles, and Xander and Cordelia slid up looking nervously human in the back. “There is more than enough here to take you out, through cunning,” she said, nodding at Giles, “strength,” she said of Angel, “power,” of Willow, “virtue,” of Tara, “loyalty,” of Xander, “and sheer balls,” she said of Cordelia. “And that’s even without the slayer. You’re not the generals waging a war. Your new role is that of teacher. The general is Faith.”

   “Where  _ is _ Faith?”

   “In her Cruciamentum,” Buffy said. “And I’m going to get her out of it. You need a rite of passage? You need to prove that your one girl in all the world, the one girl who is stronger and better than all of you bastards put together, needs to be cunning and clever as well? You need her to have more power? Well.” She threw her scythe into the air, caught it, and swung it, freezing the blade less than an inch from Travers’ nose. “This is it.”

   Travers looked suitably terrified.

   “Willow and Xander and I have been working on a website for slayers,” Buffy said. It was actually Xander she had put in charge of writing most of it, since he had a simple turn of phrase that any girl, no matter her educational level, could probably understand. He’d used Giles’s notes, and made it all sensible and easy to follow. Jenny and Willow had arranged to upload it, and it was still being mirrored, but it was out enough now that she knew it would be impossible to get rid of. “It’s been out on the internet now for... a week?”

   “A little less,” Willow said.

   “It’s still spinning through the net, which I’m sure you guys don’t really understand yet, but let me tell you, the way Willow got this set up, there is no way you can delete it. It’s got mirror sites on servers all over the planet already. It’s gone through translation software, so it’s in just about every language we can think of.”

   “And we can think of a lot of them,” Giles pointed out.

   “And yeah, maybe you’ll be able to get hold of a girl without internet access. Maybe you’ll train up your girls young enough that they won’t bother looking you up on Google. But the chances of that are slim. On this web page, the history of the Watchers is discussed, and the history of the Slayer. Slayers and potentials can tell their stories and talk to each other, about their training, their lives, their watchers. And among other things, I described the practices of the Cruciamentum.  _ In detail. _ ”

   Travers went white.

   “But I was really nice, Travers. I had that archaic practice described as a barbaric ritual the Watchers’ Council abandoned in the last few generations. Rather than what it really is — a traitorous method of ridding the world of a slayer before she turns eighteen and starts questioning her Watchers.”

   “That,” Travers said stiffly, “is not the function of the Cruciamentum....”

   “Yeah, it is,” Buffy said. “It’s a way of killing off poor girls and washing your hands of it, saying she just wasn’t good enough to pass her god damned ordeal. When I looked through the tattered records of the Watchers Council, after shaking off the dust and ashes and the blood of all of you fallen,” she said, glaring at the entire entourage, “I could read between the lines.” This was a lie, of course, but they didn’t know that. It was the essence of the truth. The Council was gone, and she had figured out that much about the Cruciamentum on her own. “In my world, there are almost no watchers left. There is no Council. The slayers train each other. And it works so much better.”

   “Slayers?”

   “I’m hoping we don’t have to activate all the potentials here,” Buffy said. “I’m hoping we don’t need a whole army of slayers. And don’t pretend the thought of that many little girls with that much power doesn’t scare the pants off you.” She stopped. “Ew, bad mental image,” she said, looking away from Travers.

   “Not so bad,” Cordy said, eying Wesley.

   Buffy rolled her eyes. “In any case,” she said pointedly. “The Council as you knew it is done, Travers. All thanks to a little technology, and an electronic wizard.” She smiled at Willow, whose face was still tear streaked, but she looked much better. “The slayers will know who they are now, and more importantly, they’ll know all of you.” She pointed at them with the scythe.

   “Where  _ is  _ the slayer?”

   “Faith’s been fighting behind enemy lines,” Giles said.

   “And fraternizing a bit,” said a voice behind the council. Spike came bursting in, shoving someone in front of him. Buffy’s heart leapt with relief, and then irritation, as where the hell had he been? But she didn’t have time to dwell on any of that, either, distracted by Spike’s companion. “Looky, looky what I found.”

   “Clem?” Buffy blinked.

   “Oh, my god!” Lydia looked overjoyed, and Wesley looked startled.

   “Why, that demon is a—”

   “Really good friend of ours,” Buffy said. “Sort of. Spike, what are you doing with Clem?”

   “I wanted to get a pulse on the demon district,” Spike said. “Figured I’d check it out real quick on my way over. Clem here was the only demon not celebrating in the streets at the capture of the Slayer.”

   “Spike caught me at the gate, I was actually on my way out.... Oh, hey, aren’t you Angel?” Clem said with a friendly smile. “I was kinda looking for you.”

   “Looking for me?”

   “Yeah.” Clem looked embarrassed. “I’m not really much for the charging in and saving people thing? I mean, the vampires knew I was being held hostage by her, so they let me go. I wasn’t too worried for myself, but I figured, you know, if you were back in town, I could at least let you know what happened.”

   “Why me? Who are you talking about?”

   “Faith. Faith and her friend Mandy were staying in my apartment for a few days. She went on and on about you, said you were her best friend.”

   Angel’s brow furrowed. “Then what...?”

   “Well, the vampires sorta caught the two of them when my buddy with the X-Ray vision told them they were hiding out there. Apparently the Master is going to kill Faith ritualistically at moonrise or something, and I figured, you know... maybe this Angel guy can do something about it? Least I could do for her. She was real nice about not slaying me and all.”

   “What about Amanda?” Spike demanded.

   Clem shook his head, looking sad. “I don’t know. They didn’t make an announcement about her. But they did about you, Spike. They know you didn’t kill Mandy, so you’re in disgrace. Just like Angel. They’ve declared being soulbound an unforgivable offence, and you — both of you, now — are sentenced to dust on sight. The Master says even if you two are his own bloodline, he’s done with this.”

   “Buffy,” Spike said, “we’ve no more time.” 

   He sounded wrong, his voice was… just… off, somehow. And  _ Amanda? _ How did Amanda get mixed up in this? “You’re right,” she said. She gripped the scythe.

   “We have until moonrise,” Travers said evenly. “We have time to prepare.”

   “Oh, so we go fight in the dark?”

   “The Slayer is the guardian of the night,” Wesley said.

   “No, of humanity,” Buffy said, annoyed. Her own Wesley had sent her off on a bunch of missions  _ at night _ now that she thought about it, missions that would have been safer in daylight. Was that where he got that stupid idea? Guardian of the freaking  _ night? _ “Only going out to fight in the dark is a stupid idea, it gives the vampires the upper hand. Get that through your thick skull, Wes, before you send some innocent kid off to her death. We’re going  _ now _ when the vampires are trapped by the sun. Cordy? Call Riley.”

   “Huh?”

   “Just call him. Tell him you heard a rumor at the school that the demon field was going down, and you’re scared. Don’t tell him you know about the Initiative, or about him being in it. Just tell him the rumor, and say you wanted to hear his big manly voice to make yourself feel better, and now you do, so he can go back to sleep. That should be enough to get the Initiative out for clean up work.”

   “I thought the Initiative were bad guys,” Xander said.

   “They’re ambiguous, but they can kill just fine,” Buffy said. “We’re still gonna take them down, but we might as well use them while we got them. Don’t tell me you’re opposed to a bunch of big, burly commando guys picking off the stragglers?”

   No one complained.

   “Clem. You should lay low until this is all over. I don’t think the Initiative will care about which demons are which when they start wholesale slaughter. Did Mom go home?”

   “Yes,” Giles said.

   “Good.” Buffy strode over to the phone and dialed the number. “Mom? I’m sending a demon to your house to hide out until the fight’s over. His name’s Clem. You okay with that?”

   “Um... I suppose.”

   “Here, you give him the address,” Buffy said, and handed Clem the phone.

   “Oh, uh. Hi,” Clem said awkwardly. Buffy turned away and looked over everyone. Watcher’s Council, Giles, Scoobies... and Spike. White and pale and looking like death warmed over. He wasn’t part of this universe, he wasn’t part of this team here, and he hadn’t been here when she was grabbing at everyone’s virtues, but if he had been, she would have given him his own descriptive power. Love.

   “We need Faith,” she said to them all. “We need faith in each other, we need faith in our cause. And we need Faith herself. Let’s go get her.”

   “How?” Travers asked. “There is no penetrating the demonic field with any substantial weaponry. We’re aware of the blood spell the Master used. With the Slayer’s blood... with the original Buffy Summers’ blood as part of its construction, the field is indestructible.”

   Buffy spun her scythe again. “We’ll see about that.”


	34. Chapter 34

 

   “Do you think she put us up here on purpose?” Xander asked.

   “What, you mean to get us talking?” Cordelia asked. She shrugged. “She might have.” She glanced over. “Do you plan to yak my ear off while we’re trying to save the world?”

   “Not really,” Xander said. He hunkered down over his crossbow and looked down at the demon district. The roof they were on had a good view of the area around the Bronze, and one of the main sewer access points. They could take out a lot of demons from where they were, with limited risk to themselves, which was probably the real reason Buffy had assigned them up here. Also, it would keep Cordelia out of the immediate view of Riley, if he and his commandos  _ did _ show up.

   Xander had listened to Cordy’s desperate _ I’m scared! _ phone call to Riley. He’d spent the whole time trying not to laugh. Before he’d had his Christmas Day talk with Buffy, he’d probably have been anxious and jealous and disturbed. Now... now what Cordy was doing with Riley just seemed... funny. If a little sad.

   “You don’t?” Cordy asked.

   “Nope.”

   “What? Don’t want to talk to me?”

   Xander glanced at her. “I do, actually. But not if you don’t want to talk to me, so....” He shrugged. “We might as well wait here to pick off demons.”

   They crouched there, crossbows at the ready, a couple of shotguns filled with silver shot casings leaning against the roof wall. (Lots of demons that could walk in sunlight had reactions to silver, and really there wasn’t anything that actually _ liked  _ being shot with a shotgun.) They crouched there for a long time. What was taking Buffy and the others so long?

   “What did you want to talk to me about?”

   Xander hesitated. This was a very bad place for this conversation. Still.... “Buffy told me a story,” he said. “Christmas day. I thought you might like to hear some of it.”

   “A story, huh?”

   “Yeah.”

   “Something akin to wandering down after Angel to LA, turning into a demon, and dying in a coma? That kind of story?”

   “Similar,” Xander said. “She told me a story about a guy just like me. A really... really nice, funny, loving guy, who was always there, always loyal, always tried to do the right thing. And who totally screwed up every real relationship he ever got in.”

   Cordy eyed him. “Oh.”

   Xander nodded. It was easier to talk if he kept his eyes fixed on the entrance to the Bronze. He couldn’t really see the main gate to the demon district from here. Was that where Buffy was coming in? Maybe the attack had already started? Demons, he reminded himself. Just shoot demons, particularly anyone who looks like they’re covering from the sun. Angel and Spike had said they were going to stick to the sewers, so he didn’t have to worry about hitting the wrong vampire.

   “Yeah,” he said. “Apparently he had this tendency to pick girls who turned out to be demons. Or who might as well have been. And even when things went well, he couldn’t make it work.  Apparently he kissed his best friend and broke the heart of a really really awesome, gorgeous girl called Cordelia.”

   “Did he.”

   “Mm-hm. Then some… other things happened. Eventually he started dating a vengeance demon. Or an ex-vengeance demon. Called Anya. They really loved each other. And after about three years of dating, they were going to get married, and he walked away in a panic and left her at the altar.” He chuckled. “And somehow... somehow he thought that wasn’t going to destroy the relationship.”

   He was very glad he wasn’t looking at Cordelia when he said that. She was silent, and he didn’t want to know what her expression was.

   “Apparently he was really, really keen on Riley. Thought he was a totally ace guy when Buffy was dating him. Hated Angel. And Spike. Made things really hard for Buffy when she fell in love with Spike. Made things hard for his friends in general. He tended to support the relationships that were bad for them, and get really judgmental about the relationships that were good.” He glanced at Cordelia. “He was a mess.”

   “What happened to him?”

   Xander shrugged. “I think he’s okay. He and Buffy are still close. But everything she told me, told me there was something... something he just didn’t  _ get _ about... well, commitment. He understood love. He understood loyalty. It wasn’t like he was selfish, and it wasn’t that he wanted to hurt anyone. But the second anyone put a cage around what he was doing and called it a commitment, it stopped working. Every time.” He took a deep breath. “And really, it sort of makes sense. I mean, he’d seen his own parents. They were absolutely committed to each other, and he’d seen how it tore them to pieces. They’d have been so much better off if they were willing to just let each other go. Then none of it would have mattered, the alcohol and the nagging and the fights and... so many fights.” He shook his head. “It wouldn’t have had to happen. It was like… they’d rather have that title  _ married _ than actually be happy…. So his whole childhood was one huge battle. Commitment wasn’t love, it was just that constant, never-ending  _ fight _ .”

   He looked down. There was Buffy. “Fight’s starting,” he said.

   Cordelia started beside him. She’d been transfixed. “Oh, yeah... yeah,” she said. She squared her shoulders and cocked her crossbow. “You’re right,” she said. “I wish  _ we _ didn’t have to live like this. Fighting all the time.”

   “Yeah,” he said. “But there’s vampires.”

   Cordy narrowed her eyes and focused on the Bronze. “Let’s hope not for much longer.”

***

   “Not much longer now,” Tara said.

   Willow, uncharacteristically, was silent.

   Tara looked over. “Hey. You okay?”

   “I’m scared.”

   “Buffy has us over here for a reason,” Tara said. “Besides, if we stay inside the circle, I don’t think any demons can get to us.”

   They had drawn a protective circle in the center of the parking lot. Their job was to stop any vampires or other evil demons from leaving in the cars. (They had studied a small chart of other probably-not-very-evil demons they could ignore if those kinds tried to escape, but... well, it was war.) They could use magic to snatch cloaks off heads for vampires, a few other offensive spells to take out other demons, and they had some plain ordinary weaponry. They’d also laid down a dampening field. None of the cars would start until they lifted it.

   “I’m not scared of the demons,” Willow said. “That thing... my magic. What if it gets away from me?”

   “It’s not going to do that today,” Tara said. “And we’re not going to let it get that bad, ever. I promise.”

   “But it’s... scary. To know that’s inside me. I don’t want to be that.”

   Tara set down her crossbow and went over to Willow. “I didn’t want to be me, either,” she said. “I didn’t want to be part demon — and I wasn’t, and I’m glad. But I went on with it, even knowing what I was going to be one day. And also, I wasn’t sure I wanted to love girls, either, and... I do. It’s what we are, Willow. We can’t pretend we’re not. We can’t just lock it away and let it die. If we try to do that... wouldn’t it eat us up?”

   Willow looked over at Tara. “I’m really, really, _ really _ glad Buffy called you,” she said. “I’m seeing this really long, terrible magic journey ahead of me that’s gonna go to some really scary places. I don’t know if I could face it alone.”

   “You don’t have to,” Tara said. She put her arms around her new girlfriend. “We’re together.”

 

***

 

   “Are we all together?” Buffy said.

   “All except for your... uh... vampires,” said Quentin Travers. “I’m surprised at the lack of detail in your reports, Giles. You told me Angelus made contact with Buffy Summers, you didn’t tell me he was fully in league with you and the slayers.”

   “Has been for the last two years. I told you he hadn’t left town.”

   Buffy glanced at Giles. “Giles keeps two sets of reports,” she said loudly. “One of them is honest. One of them works with what he thinks you all want to hear. If you’re  _ really _ nice and  _ really _ forthcoming and  _ really _ give him a raise, he might just let you see some of them. If not, he’ll keep gathering power and take over the council one day. Your choice.”

   Quentin looked scandalized. “Well, I...”

   “Don’t try to fight her,” Giles said quietly. “I’ve learned it’s better. She’s older than any slayer has ever been on this world. I suspect she knows what she’s talking about.”

   “These two vampires are different,” Buffy went on. “They both have souls, and I trust them both implicitly.” That might not have been the case for both of them before Angel had spoken to her this morning, but now... this Angel. She totally trusted this Angel. “They can handle their front.” She hadn’t even given them explicit instructions. Just  _ Get to the Bronze through the sewers, and do what you can to fight. _ They were attacking from below. She attacked from above. The humans and the witches were out of immediate harm’s way and mostly set to pick off stragglers. The Initiative would be late (it would take them time to muster. She knew their tactics) but she knew they could do the mop up work once the big fight was over, and arrange for medical and refugee services for the trapped civilians. The watchers were there — Giles, Quentin, Wesley, Lydia and their body guards — to see what the scythe could do.

   They marched on the front entrance, between the ripped fence posts, and stopped before the red line. “Just to prove the point,” Buffy said to them. “Giles?”

   Giles lifted the sword in his hand and made a pass at the field. As expected, the sword rebounded off, and Giles had to grip it hard to keep it from clattering off behind him. “Now.” Buffy lifted her own weapon, twirled it, and slashed down directly at the pavement the red line was painted on.

   The very air shimmered, and the field was suddenly visible, a sickly reddish half-dome arching over the city. The sky went dark for a moment. Then, the field cracked, right at the point where Buffy’s scythe had cracked the pavement. The crack slid up the red dome, and the field parted, and fell away. Buffy stepped over the line, then hopped back again, doing a bit of an arrogant dance. You couldn’t have told it from looking at her, but she actually hadn’t been sure it was going to work. It had been a mere guess on her part that the scythe would break the field. She was really, really glad her guess had proved right!

_   I believe in you. You’re the one, Buffy. _

   No. Don’t think about Spike right now!

   “Well. The field is down. Do you expect us to be impressed?” Quentin asked.

   “I expect you already are, and are too damn scared of me to show it,” Buffy said. “Well, come on,” she said with a coquettish grin, and gestured the watchers in to follow. “Don’t you want to see how it ends?”

***

 

   “This way!” Spike said.

   “Down here? Doesn’t this lead to a dead end with some pipes?”

   “Not anymore, the Master had a bunch of new tunnels dug and walls knocked out.”

   Angel shook his head. “I’ve never gotten this close.”

   They were almost racing down the tunnels. Spike and Angel had slipped into the sewers in the basement of the school as soon as Buffy arranged to place everyone. The others were probably taking cars, and so might get to the demon district ahead of them. Might. Spike was running pretty fast. Angel had to trot to keep up — Spike had always been a little faster, demonic age aside. Angel was stronger, but no longer by much these days it seemed. A hundred years can do that to a fellow, he supposed.

   “These don’t even look like sewers anymore,” Angel said. “Did he have them drained out or something?”

   “Had the gutters rerouted, I think. You really didn’t know this?”

   “I avoided the central hub.”

    Spike glanced at him. “How come you never tried this?”

   “What do you mean?”

   “Acting evil, getting into their good graces? Would have given you better intelligence.”

   Angel shrugged. “After Darla, the Master wouldn’t have believed me. And before I killed her, he wouldn’t have accepted me without her say so, and she wouldn’t have accepted me unless I killed Buffy.”

   “But she would have accepted you then? Why didn’t you fake it?”

   “Guess I’m not as devious as you,” Angel said. He was always a little afraid he’d fall into the evil completely. He hadn’t tried to do good until after he’d met Buffy. It was new, this good-doing thing. Truth was, he suspected Spike had a better handle on it. Well... Angel knew he had plenty of time to learn, now. “Who is this Mandy you’re so worried about?”

   “Potential,” Spike said. “Might grow up to be a slayer some day.”

   “Might?”

   “I’m hoping not,” Spike said.

   “Why not?”

   “Two reasons. I’m sort of hoping Faith lives to a ripe old age, and Amanda’s too old to get Chose before your slayer goes down. And second, I like the chit.”

   “And?”

   Spike was moving too fast to glare, but Angel caught the contempt in his expression. “And if you’ve ever watched this life drag a girl down, you’ll know it’s not something to wish on anyone, let alone someone you’re fond of. Rabbit’s had a hard enough time as it is.”

   “What’s happened to her?”

   “Parents murdered, kidnapped by vampires, turned into Christmas dinner. Tortured,” he added darkly. “Hurry up!” he added when Angel fell a little behind. “I’m not waiting for you, grandpappy, they could be torturing her again!”

   “We can heal torture,” Angel said, trying to be reassuring.

   “Not if they chop off her arms, we can’t!” Spike yelled.

   Angel’s worry hitched up a notch, and he hustled to match Spike’s speed. He had been thinking in terms of Faith being safe until moonrise. That didn’t mean they couldn’t do a hell of a lot of terrible things to her in the meantime.

 

***

 

   “Stop, please, I’m begging you!” Faith cried out. “I mean, you guys want to eat me, beat me, lick me, whatever, go ahead. But if you’re gonna keep droning on with your god damn sermon, just kill me now!”

   The Master turned to her. “Do you... think you’re... humorous?” 

   Faith rolled her eyes. “Well, I’m not femur,” she said. 

   What she was, was bored. Even being scared lost its excitement after a while, and fear had become so normal these last weeks that she couldn’t maintain it, not even captured. She had lost count of the number of vampires she and Amanda had taken out before the beasts had overpowered them, but it had been a lot. Faith had even managed to kill a couple more before they got her fully contained. Her arms ached from throwing punches. She had bruises and, yes, bites, but for the most part she was okay. Amanda wasn’t so lucky. They had been about to kill her, and had indeed started to feed before someone mentioned they recognized her as Spike’s Christmas dinner, and that meant Spike had lied about killing her, and that meant she needed to be taken to the Master.

   In order to keep Faith contained they had her hands roped behind her back, her wrists and ankles chained, and the chains in turn latched to a cage, which was closed. She was trussed up like a damn turkey, and all she could do now was sit here and be rude to the pontificating bastard who had her and Amanda trapped.

   Amanda’s wrists were bound behind her, too, but she wasn’t chained up. She was kneeling, dead-eyed and enthralled, at the feet of the Anointed One, staring up at him worshipfully. She was bruised, bloody, her eye was swollen shut, and she looked really pale. But they hadn’t killed her yet. The boy kept taking little nips off her wounds, but the Master had told him not to kill her.

   “Why not?” the boy whined.

   “I’m confident our men will return with the scythe,” the Master said. “If Spike was honest about that at least. If he wasn’t... well. There’s more than one way to kill a slayer.” He looked about him. “Is it sunrise already?” he asked one of his minions. They nodded confirmation. “They should have returned by now... with news of Spike’s dust, and the scythe in hand.”

   “They were having some trouble getting it out of the rock,” said Mr. Trick, leaning slyly against the wall. “Leastways, that’s what Brandon said.” Then he shrugged. “They got the van. They might come in through one of the sewer routes. I wouldn’t write ‘em off yet.”

   “Why do we even need the scythe?” the Anointed One complained. “We can kill them both now, can’t we?”

   “At moonrise!” the Master said. “Publicly. I have been... humiliated by my trust of the ensouled. I must make a show of strength!”

   “But what about my treat!” the Anointed One said, stamping his foot. “Why can’t I eat her  _ now? _ ”

   The Master shook his head. “This is the potential, yes?” he said, lifting Amanda’s chin with an evil grin. He breathed in the scent of her blood and laughed. “Yes. I’m certain Spike told the absolute truth about that. We use the scythe to kill the Slayer, and when she dies, if this one does not immediately gain the Slayer’s power we will know. We will know that the weapon did as Spike claimed it would. We will know there will be no more Slayers in our world!”

   Faith did not tell them that there were dozens, possibly hundreds of potentials all over the world, and that Amanda was probably a little young to be Chosen. The average age of the Chosen was fifteen, with some as old as nineteen, and some young as twelve. It wouldn’t be  _ impossible _ for Amanda to be the next Chosen if Faith was killed, particularly considering that the Hellmouth was a hotspot, and the Master was particularly active — the Slayer tended to be Chosen based on the most active elder vampires in any given area, like Buffy being Chosen where Lothos rose in LA, and Faith being Chosen just as Kakistos was gathering power in Boston — but there was no guarantee that she was next on the docket.

   It didn’t matter. Faith was pretty sure they couldn’t use the scythe, and even if they could, knew it sure as hell wouldn’t destroy the Slayer line.  _ Some _ girl would rise after she snuffed it.

   But in the meantime, she had to listen to the Master monologue.

   “And with no more Slayers, the world will be ours. Darkness will gather. Our people will rise! Ash will rise from the funeral pyres, we will make orchestras of screams, our victims’ blood will flow in the streets!”

   “Sounds like a waste,” Faith said. “I mean, don’t you want to eat that stuff?”

   “Shut your mouth, young lady, I wasn’t speaking to you.”

   Faith rolled her eyes. “Right. Wake me when you’re ready to kill me.”

   The Master was looking at her thoughtfully. “Did you never give a thought to turning your life to darkness?” he asked. “I was considering having one of my men turn you. The Last Slayer. But perhaps... perhaps it might be time for a new daughter of my own. Someone young and vibrant and not quite so...” he glanced at the Anointed One.

   “Bratty?” Faith asked.

   The Master’s eyes narrowed. Man, the bastard was ugly. Made Kakistos look handsome. She wondered what it was about the demonic power that twisted them like that. She couldn’t imagine Angel — or Spike for that matter — ever getting so deep into the demonic power that they lost all vestige of humanity, but apparently it had happened to quite a number of the super-vamps she’d sort of studied when she’d first got to Sunnydale. With Kakistos following her, and the Master right there, and everyone still grieving Kendra, she’d done some reading on the big baddies, and how they got that way. There wasn’t much, and she wasn’t studying too hard, but a lot of the records had pictures. Apparently Lothos had been some ugly mother-fucker, too. Was it some kind of corruption from having that much demon in a body for that long, or was it something more fundamental? Did they scorn their humanity enough they were finally able to eat it out of themselves?

   “Well, Colin does have a certain... temperament,” the Master said, “which does not leave him as the best of companions. It was... amusing enough when I was instructing him on his role in the grand design, but....”

   “Got old fast?”

   The Master smiled at Faith. “Yes. I could see you as my new daughter... there is evil in your heart, my child, easily corrupted from light to the darkness. A selfishness. A fear. You stand alone, but you crave for more than that.... Evil is attractive to you. Pleasure. Self-indulgence. You stand on the cusp. Like a teetering stone... my power... my skill... I could send you over the edge, my dear... you could be my new favorite... my own....”

   “Gross,” Faith said.

   The Master’s smile broadened. “It would be my choice to take it from you. You needn’t agree. Blood will be meat and milk to you. Evil will be your pleasure. Your body will be your weapon. Your blood will be a song to the demons. The Slayer Corrupted, yes, yes, I will make you my disciple, I will—”

   “Does being your disciple mean I’d have to listen to you talk? Because if it does, I’d better warn you... I’ll probably hate it even if I’m a vampire.”

   The Master glared at her. “You would be my own creation.”

   Faith leaned forward as much as the chains and the bars and the bruises would allow. “And you know what? Even if I’m all evil, even if I’m all corrupted, even if I’m remade in your... decidedly skeevy image, I’m sure there’ll still be one thing that won’t change.  _ I’ll still want to kill you. _ ”

   The Master was about to say something, when suddenly he grunted. He clutched at his chest. He cringed. “My blood....” he groaned. “My... my blood!”

   Some of the other vampires were cringing a bit as well, particularly the Anointed One, who stopped toying with Amanda and curled up on the floor. “Oww!” he moaned. “I don’t like this!”

   “Shut up,” the Master snapped at him. “This... this is my blood. This is....” He suddenly straightened up. “My spell,” he said. “The field. The field has been broken!”

   A sudden commotion upstairs made everyone look up. “Already? They’ve broken my field, they attack already? Trick! Go and see what has become of my men! Muster the army!”

   “It’s daylight,” Trick said. “Those that aren’t down here in the sewers already are holed up in their bungalows....”

   “Well, alert them!”

   “How?” Trick asked. “You don’t have any kind of alarm system set up. I told you to issue pagers, but were you listening to me?”

   The Master cuffed the man. “Collect who you can!” he said. “This is the Slayer Buffy’s doing, I’m sure of it!”

   “You want me to fight the Slayer?” Trick asked, incredulous. At the Master’s look, he bowed slightly. “Of course, Master. I’ll get right on that.” He hightailed it up the stairs.

   “All others! Within the sound of my voice!” he cried out, his cry echoing down the sewer tunnels surrounding his audience chamber. “My children! My own! To me, to me, to—”

   “Looking for your own?” came Angel’s voice from behind Faith. “Time for a family reunion.”

   The Master looked to Angel. “Angel!” he said, sounding half welcoming. “Well, if it isn’t the prodigal—”

   He didn’t have time to finish his smarmy speech. A black and white ball of snarling hellion launched across the room at the Master and flattened the guy onto the floor. “ _ You die! _ ” Spike roared.

   Angel darted at the cage and tried to unlatch it. The doors didn’t want to break. “Unscrew the chains,” Faith snapped at him. “Then I can help you.”

   Spike and the Master wrestled on the ground, and several more minions came out of the tunnels, attacking Angel. He frequently had to stop wrestling with Faith’s bonds to throw them aside or dust one or another of them.

   Then there was a commotion by the stairs. Trick came rolling down them, followed by Buffy. Giles was close behind her, shepherding a handful of other others, all of them looking far too well dressed for a raid. Faith sort of recognized one of them as one of the Watcher’s Council. She thought she’d seen a picture of Quentin Travers once. The others she assumed were more of the same. They looked completely lost, as if they had no idea what they were doing there. They didn’t seem to be doing much, as Buffy simply twirled her scythe, planted it for a second in Trick’s chest, and the man turned to dust, right down to his red silk suit.

   “Buffy! Over here!” Angel yelled.

   There were, unfortunately, quite a lot of minions between the stairs and Faith’s cage. Spike was busy with the Master, and holding his own, though not making any substantial ground. He seemed to be trying to keep punching the guy in the mouth so he couldn’t talk and enthrall anyone.

   “Faith!” Buffy called out.

   And then someone else cried out the name, in a terrified scream.

_  “Faith!” _

   Faith looked over. Amanda was out of her trance. The Anointed One had recovered from his blood reaction and had grabbed her as some kind of shield between himself and the others. Spike’s head snapped up, and he abandoned the Master, launching himself at the Anointed One. “No! I told her you don’t get her!” he snarled.

   The Anointed One turned and focused his powers on Spike. “I’m not impressed with you, nephew,” he said. He pointed at Spike, and Spike slowly went down on his knees. Faith was disheartened. There was no guarantee that any of them would live through this. The Master was picking himself up. He’d be on her and Angel any second, and now Spike appeared to be going down. The Anointed One had power, even over other vampires. “You’ve failed our great father, and you’ve failed your place in the world,” the boy scolded Spike. “What are you? You’re not one of them.” He indicated Faith and Amanda. “You’re not one of us. You’re a mistake. A joke. A—”

   Spike’s hand shot out and grabbed the Anointed One by the ankle. “You can’t play that on me, you brat!” he snarled. The boy screamed as he was yanked onto his back. “Use your puppydog eyes to make everyone you look on ready to die? Go to hell!” he yelled. “I’m always ready to die! And if I had to do it all over again,” Spike said, picking him up, “I’d still dust you!” He swung his arm and bashed the kid against the wall. Amanda screamed again at the sight, but Spike kept at it, brutally, the demon boy screaming and crying out, his cold carcass making sickening sounds of thuds and crunches. Then, finally, the head snapped from the body, and dust fell from Spike’s hands.

   He tilted his head back for a moment, panting with exertion, and then turned to Amanda, who flinched. “You get away from me!” she yelled at Spike.

   “Run, rabbit!” he shouted, and pointed at a corner.

   And, like a god damned conditioned response, Amanda ran to it, and hunkered down.

   Just in time for the Master to stand fully, wave his hand, and direct a half dozen minions at Spike. He disappeared beneath them. 

   “God dammit, I can’t—” Angel had managed to disconnect Faith’s chains, but she still had the ropes around her wrists, and the cage door was still locked. There were too many minions for him to concentrate on the cage. He kept having to fight them off. Faith pounded at the cage door with her feet, but it was no good.

   And there was Buffy. “Out of the way!” she said to Angel. Angel directed his full attention on fighting the minions and Buffy swirled the scythe at the cage door. The damn thing nearly exploded. Faith was hit by shrapnel.

   “Sight for sore eyes, B,” Faith said. “About time you turned up. Gonna take this bastard out for me?”

   “No,” Buffy said. She used the sharp end of the scythe to cut through the ropes, and suddenly Faith was free. She stood up, stiff and sore, confused.

   “Huh?”

   “I’m not taking the Master out,” Buffy said. She pulled the last of the ropes off Faith’s wrists and said, “You are.”

   “B... I’m exhausted,” Faith admitted. “I’m beat, I’m sore....” She was sleep deprived, underfed, injured, stiff.... and frankly scared. She might have been bored with fear, but that didn’t mean she didn’t feel it. 

   “And none of that matters,” Buffy said. She pressed the scythe into Faith’s hands. “You’re the Slayer.”

   Faith looked down at the weapon in her hand. Damn. Just... damn. That... that was something. It felt old... and strong... and it felt like....

   Like it was hers.

   Buffy stepped back and dove back into the fray, fighting off the lesser minions beside Spike and Angel. Giles and a couple of the others were mostly keeping the knot of watchers safe, and they were simply...  _ watching _ as Faith took up... hot damn. Her birthright.

   She looked up. The Master was standing by his throne, secure in his faith in his minions and his power.

   A smile broke over Faith’s face, and the scythe spun instinctively in her hand. Bastard wouldn’t know what hit him.   

 


	35. Chapter 35

 

   “You’re going to want to break those,” Buffy said in the aftermath. “I know, the impulse is to just walk away from the bones of your enemies, but that’s the demon in you. Turns out, there’s a way to resurrect the bastard.”

   “That sucks.” Faith looked down at the fallen skeleton of the Master, still panting a little from the exertion. It had been a gorgeous fight. Buffy had taken care of her knot of minions and watched the end of it with satisfaction. If the Watchers Council had had any doubts about the power of the Slayer before, she was sure they’d have it figured out by now. They weren’t playing with little girls. They weren’t the warriors, wielding the Slayer as a weapon. They were the children. The Slayer was the warrior. “Why didn’t he just dust?” Faith asked.

   “Age, I think,” Buffy said. “I never really knew.”

   Faith attacked the skeleton with the scythe, splintering the bones, bashing the skull in particular to powder. Buffy turned from her and assessed her team. Giles had a bite, and he was sweating and tired, but he’d mostly been working keeping the rest of the Watchers alive, alongside their bodyguards. Wesley, Lydia, and Travers looked chagrined, but unhurt. Angel was pretty bloody, but it all looked superficial, for a vampire at least. He came up to stand by Faith. Good. Spike....

   Spike was standing on guard before a bleeding, pitiful figure, crouched on the floor. When Buffy approached, he started, hyperalert, but relaxed slightly when he saw it was only her. “She’ll be okay,” he said.

   She. Amanda. Spike looked awful, he had scratches on his face and his expression was dead. Amanda looked worse. She was younger than the Amanda Buffy had known, bruised, bitten, and she cowered wide eyed — or with one wide eye, anyway, the other one swollen shut — against the wall. 

   “Hey. Amanda?” Buffy said, coming up to her. “I’m Buffy.”

   Amanda glanced up.

   “I heard about you. We’re gonna get you out of here, okay?”

   “You can’t. We’re all stuck here,” the girl said. “God’s punishing us for our wickedness.”

   Buffy shook her head. “I don’t think God’s that petty,” she said. “It’s just a very bad man doing very bad things. And he’s gone now. We’re gonna get you back home.”

   “I don’t... have a home,” Amanda said. “They... they burned it down. They... they killed my....”

   Buffy cringed. Shit. She was going to need support, what could they...?

   “Hey, Wes!” she called out.

   “Good choice,” Spike said quietly.

   Wesley Wyndam-Pryce looked startled. “Me? P-pardon?”

   “Yeah. You.” She took hold of Amanda’s arm and lifted her to her feet. “Come on, Amanda. I want to introduce you to someone.” She led Amanda over to Wesley. “Wes, this is Amanda. She’s a potential slayer, and apparently she’s homeless. I know you were sent over probably with the promise of taking over for Giles.”

   Wes looked a little chagrined. “Well, I... nothing was... official yet....”

   “Yeah, but you’d no plans to return to England any time soon, yeah? Congratulations. Meet your new potential. It’s a girl.”

   Wesley looked bewildered for another second before Buffy added low, “She doesn’t have anyone else.”

   All of Wesley’s pomp and arrogance fell away, as Buffy knew it could. It was something he only put on when nervous, anyway. “Hello, Amanda,” he said, bending down a bit to her level. “I’m Wesley.”

   “Where’s Faith?” she asked. 

   “She’s a little busy, but she’ll be around,” Buffy said. “We’ll get you some training, and Faith will be part of that.”

   “Training? I... I don’t....”

   Buffy turned the girl to her. “We’re going to train you up enough that if monsters come in the middle of the night and try to hurt anyone around you, you’ll be able to stop it. Whether you’re chosen or not. Okay?”

   Amanda stared at her. “You’re like Faith,” she said softly.

   “Yeah. I am. And you are, too. All girls are, did you know that? Even if they don’t realize it.” She passed Amanda to Wesley. “Can you take her to the hospital quick, before the whole refugee crisis starts? Just sign everything like you were her guardian, it’ll take them a day or two to figure out it’s not legal, and by then, it will be.”

   Wesley nodded. “Right.”

   Faith was finally finished with the Master’s bones. “Angel, you take Faith home, fast, before the Initiative gets all handsy. Can you two take care of each other for a bit?”

   “Yeah,” Angel said.

   “Perfect. Let’s go mop up the Bronze and free the pens.”

   They headed up the stairs, and Buffy was surprised to see Spike already there. The back wall had been broken out, connecting the Bronze to the warehouse behind it, where the Master had put his blood extraction machine. And Spike was in the process of breaking the damn thing.

   A couple of uniformed commandos came running into the Bronze, pointing weapons at everything, wrestling through a couple of rooms, and then darting back out again. Shouting was happening outside, then distant cheers as someone — Giles, or maybe the Initiative — opened up the buildings that housed the pens. She heard a helicopter. It was all really happening out there, the military was taking care of the cleanup. And Spike was systematically destroying every part of that infernal machine.

   She knew she should stop him. She knew it was crime scene stuff, or research stuff, and she knew they should get him out of here before Riley and his cronies decided he was one of the bad vamps and took him down. He didn’t have to do this, it was over. Without the Master to run the infrastructure, this was just an empty thing. Like the gas chambers in WWII, they needed to be wielded. They couldn’t kill on their own. But he was hellbent to destroy it, and she felt... far away from him. She couldn’t even move in to help. She just stood there, watching him.

   Then he found the tank of human blood at the end of the machine. He retched. Then he kicked it. It went toppling over, and the blood splashed along the floor, to drain out of the grate in the center. The machine was all in bent and tortured pieces by then. He went to the refrigerators along the wall then, and pulled out the industrial gallon tubs of blood, splashing them on the ground as he destroyed every single one.

   Buffy guarded the entrance, and watched him. Blood splattered onto his face, stained his hands, his boots were shiny with it, his coat wet. He wouldn’t stop, not until everything was destroyed. By the time it was all over, she knew what was wrong. She knew why Spike was doing this. She knew why he’d been so cold and distant. She knew why he wouldn’t look at her. It wasn’t just the machine. It wasn’t just the Master. It wasn’t only the demon child below. It was him.

   Spike himself was already drenched in blood.

***

 

   “It actually hasn’t been so bad these last couple days. Clem’s place was pretty nice,” Faith said. “But I was getting worried, the caches had run out. It was lots harder with Mandy.” She had fallen into the huge bathtub of Angel’s master suite, so she’d just come out of his bedroom, clad in nothing but a towel. “Oh, god, is that prime-rib?”

   “Yep.” Angel had ordered it from Faith’s favorite restaurant and paid way too much extra to get it delivered. It was worth it. She was home.

   Faith fell on the styrofoam package and grabbed the meat out with her bare hands. She’d never been one for the niceties of the table. Angel would have to remind her that she was no longer a prisoner or a hunted animal. But not yet. Let her be home for a while first. Faith said something, her mouth full.

   “Huh?”

   She chewed and swallowed. “What kept you, anyway?”

   “Oh, I.... It’s complicated.”

   “Yeah? Where’s Ms. Calendar?”

   “Still in LA.”

   “I hope she didn’t clean up my room or anything. I had a system.”

   “I didn’t put her in your room, I put her in Buffy’s,” Angel said. “Though... I sort of neatened up in yours a little.”

   “Angel!”

   He shrugged. “I liked it in there. Sort of... missed you, you know.”

   Faith grinned. “It’s really, really, really,  _ really _ great to be home!” she said with an expressive crouch. “Seriously, where the fuck were you? You said you were gonna be gone like a day, it took you a fucking week.”

   “It... it took that long to get the rest of the family to LA,” Angel said. “It... it was important to wait for them.”

   “It was, huh?” Faith perched up on the counter with her meat in her hands, the towel showing a lot of thigh. “How come?”

   “Well, I did... um. I asked the GrandJanna about the curse. She said... she said they couldn’t change it. If I ever achieve perfect happiness, I’ll lose the soul. There was nothing they could do about that.”

   Faith groaned.

   “So I sort of... asked them if they knew any other curses.”

   Faith looked up. “Wait, what?”

   “I asked if they knew any other curses. If they could sort of... curse me again.” He shrugged. “It took all the elders. All of GrandJanna’s children, and some of their kids, too. It... was a lot of plane tickets.” He glanced up at Faith. Her brown eyes were hooded and concerned. “But they did it.”

   “So now you’re under _ another _ curse?” Faith demanded. “What’s this one?”

   “That I’m cursed to never find perfect happiness,” he said. “Unless I achieve the forgiveness of every soul I’ve ever wronged.”

   Faith’s mouth hung open. There was still a piece of prime rib in it. It was kind of cute. She caught herself and swallowed, the mouthful only half chewed. “That’s impossible.”

   Angel shook his head. “It’s not impossible,” he said. “Apparently the curse won’t take if the safety clause is  _ impossible _ . And it needs a safety clause, apparently, or it’ll rebound on the caster. But I  _ could _ do it. Achieve forgiveness. It’s what I want most, anyway. Their forgiveness.”

   “Aren’t most of those people dead?”

   “Yeah. It would involve a lot of seances, locating a lot of souls on a lot of planes, convincing them to forgive me one at a time. It would take a lot of work, a lot of reparations, a lot of... it would take a lot,” Angel said. “I’d have to remember everyone I’ve ever wronged. I’d have to be aware of them all — and I’m sure I’m not. You can wrong people without knowing, and I’m sure I have. I know it would take centuries, if then. But it couldn’t happen by accident, is all. I couldn’t be washed clean by just... one person.” He felt really awkward. He opened up the fridge, for reasons he couldn’t even understand. It wasn’t like he wanted anything in there. He shunted his blood jars around, and then closed the door again. He wouldn’t look at Faith. “That was sort of what happened with Buffy,” he said. “With... that other Angel. Since it probably wasn’t just the sex, Buffy says. I think it was that. Her peace and her forgiveness. I think he felt that  _ her _ forgiveness for his sins was enough. So.” He shrugged. “Now it can’t be.”

   There was a long and heavy silence. “So this means you can have sex.”

   God, he loved how blunt she was. “Yeah,” he said, sure he’d be blushing if he was human. “Sort of.”

   “What do you mean sort of?” Faith asked, dropping her meat back into its box.

   “Well, there were reasons I didn’t... for so long, you know?”

   She jumped down off the counter. “What were they?”

   “Well, I... other vampires didn’t like me much, and every time I... every time I got close to a human being, it... I’m really strong, Faith, and I... what are you doing?”

   “Taking off your shirt.”

   “Hey, that wasn’t why I did this,” he said, though it was hard to think with her clever fingers tickling down his buttons….

   “So?” she said. “Come on, don’t you wanna?”

   “Faith.” He put her hands down. A little late, she’d gotten all but the lowest button. 

   She groaned. “Oh, come  _ on _ Angel! I haven’t gotten off in like months! I just killed the Sunnydale ubervamp, you know slaying makes me hungry and horny, and you’re fucking hot and you’re right fucking  _ here! _ ”

   “Faith, it’s not... I still can’t....”

   “Why not?” Faith demanded. She wasn’t being romantic about this. He wasn’t sure he was glad about that or not.

   “I just can’t.”

   “How come? This is insane, Angel! How come you never got it on in the whole of the last damn century, huh?”

   “Because every one I tried it with I killed,” Angel said softly. Faith’s eyes widened in surprise. He gently pushed past her and went to sit on the couch.

   He heard her follow, her bare footsteps measured. A moment later she sank onto the couch beside him, curled up on her side in her towel. She gazed at him, her elbow on the back of the couch. She just looked at him.

   “They’re very similar,” Angel said finally. “Feeding and... and being with someone like that. They feel the same. The heat and the... the longing. I think I might have gotten to the point where the two are more... separate, but... I don’t know. I... I was trying to. When I met Buffy, I... I didn’t want to kill her, but I wanted... I wanted.” He looked down. “I tried to split it up, in my head. And even then, I still vamped out the first time she kissed me. I... I don’t know if I can....” He trailed off. He’d never admitted this to anyone. He barely admitted it to himself.

   “When was the last time you tried?”

   “1910,” he said. “She... I managed to... to stop, but....” He shook his head. “I never tried after that. Took it off the table until....”

   “Until Buffy,” Faith said.

   Angel looked down.

   “Well,” Faith said, shifting on the couch. She climbed over him in her towel and straddled his legs. “1910 was a long, long time ago.”

   “I know,” Angel said. A nearly naked, sexually vibrant young woman straddling him was having the expected effect, of course. He was going to have to put a stop to this in a second. Or... not. One way or another, he was going to have to make a decision on this, and soon.

   “And you probably don’t want to eat me.”

   He wanted to devour her. “Not really.”

   “And I really want to get it on.  _ Hard, _ ” she whispered in his ear, flexing her body, and... damn. She’d lost weight in the demon district, and that worried him, but she’d gained some interesting muscles... or maybe he just hadn’t been in a position to appreciate them before....

   He gasped. “I just don’t know if I’m the best person for....”

   Faith rolled her eyes. “Fine. You want me to go call Xander? Cordy dumped him, right? I’m sure he’d be up for it.”

   “That’s a little cruel. Xander’s a virgin.”

   Faith looked surprised. “He is? Maybe I  _ will _ have to call him.”

   “Come on, leave him be. He’d want something serious in the morning.”

   “I wouldn’t be there in the morning,” Faith said. “I screw ‘em, then I bail. I never actually  _ sleep _ with anyone.”

   Angel looked at her drawn, tired face. He knew she was exhausted. He also knew she was too keyed up over the slay. He’d listened to too many evenings, showed out too many men — and a few adventurous women — who were dazed and amazed by her sexual appetites after she’d rescued them from certain death. He knew she did need it. He wished it was that simple....

   Of course, there was no reason it couldn’t be.

   “You slept with me,” he said.

   Faith opened her mouth a moment, and then paused. “Huh. I did.” Her face broke into a grin. “Guess you’re the first guy I ever slept with.” She caressed his lips, and then subtly slipped her fingers into his mouth. He bit down — it was instinctive. Her grin broadened at that. Her fingers tasted of prime rib and slayer. “Thing is, Angel, I’m lots stronger than whoever those girls were,” she whispered into his ear, sucking on it, nibbling, breathing hot and heavy. “And if you can’t separate it... if you start to go too far... too hard... too... whatever... I can stop you.” 

   Her kisses traveled along his cheek, down his jaw, and then... yeah, they were kissing. And he was kissing her back. Because it did feel good. And he did want.... He’d spent near a hundred years wanting.  

   “Besides, we really ought to check out this new curse,” Faith said suddenly with an air of scientific experimentation. She sat up and looked down on him. “I mean, what if the gypsies lied, and you find perfect happiness? Lots safer if a slayer’s on call if you go all soulless, you know? In fact, you know what, Angel? I think it might just be my  _ sacred duty _ to make sure you’re well and truly cursed.”

   “You’re gilding the lily, Faith,” Angel said, his hand sliding up under her towel. It fell to the floor. “You had me somewhere around  _ first guy you ever slept with. _ ”

   She kissed him again, grinding atop him, and he put his arms around her warm flesh. Yeah... it was very similar. The closeness, the pleasure. But that didn’t mean it had to be the same.

   The same....

   “Wait,” he said. He put his arms under her and lifted her up as he stood.

   “What’s this about?”

   “I keep having problems on this couch,” he said. “We’re going to my bedroom, and I’m closing the door.”

   Faith laughed as he carried her. “Fine. So long as I get this hot bod, I don’t care what you do with me. Gonna try my best to burn that soul right out of you, prove to everyone it’s stuck.”

   “And when that’s proved?” Angel said, laying her down on his sheets. He wasn’t at all sure love-everlasting was even  _ possible _ with Faith. But they were friends, he knew that. He was pretty sure nothing could destroy that. No. Not even this.

   “Eh, who cares,” Faith said. “Right now, this slayer is gonna screw this vampire, dammit.” She flipped him over and climbed on top, scratching her nails down his chest. “Hard.”

   “Sounds wrong,” Angel said, but he was smiling as he said it.

   “Sounds wicked,” she agreed.

   There was a heavy pause between them, and she bent forward to kiss him. “Sounds perfect.”


	36. Chapter 36

  
  


   “He wouldn’t let me hold him,” Buffy said. Joyce kept stroking her hair, curled up beside her on the couch. “It was like he made sure I couldn’t. He did everything possible to see to it that I... had to walk away.”

   “But you did finally get him out of there?” Joyce asked. “Before those... Initiative fellows caught him?”

   “Yeah, though I think that was the only thing that induced him to leave. He didn’t want another chip in his skull. I think if I’d let him he would have spent the next six years trying to dismantle everything the Master had done, all by himself. I mean, the military is more equipped to deal with that pile of... in the center. And sort out the people in the pens. And so long as they’re just killing the bad guys, I’m just as happy to let them mop up the leftover demons. But it was like Spike wished he could disappear into making it all... disappear.”

   “What did you do?”

   “Well, I tried to bring him back here, but he said the house doesn’t have sewer access.”

   “Well, it doesn’t.”

   “No, Mom, you don’t get it! Spike jumped from that manhole down the street into our house all the time. It’s less than a block, throwing a blanket or his coat over his head and just run for it. It never fazed him at all! Then he said he... didn’t want blood all over your shower.”

   “Well, that sounds considerate,” Joyce pointed out.

   “Yeah. I... sort of had to agree with him when he put it that way. Kind of an... awkward way to meet you the first time.”

   “So what did you do?”

   “We went back to the school,” Buffy said. “He took a shower in a locker room, and I went to get him some new clothes, but when I came back he was gone.”

   “Without his clothes?”

   “He probably washed them and put them back on wet, it’s not like he feels the cold,” Buffy said.

   “You have no idea where he is now?”

   “Well, he wasn’t at the hospital,” Buffy said. “I checked on Amanda, and he hadn’t gone to check up on her. She… said she would have had him kicked out if he  _ had _ come to check on her, anyway. It was hard, what he had to do to get her out of there. She hasn’t forgiven him for it.”

   “She may one day.”

   “I don’t know. It might be easier for her to hate him than to accept everything else that happened. But anyway, he wasn’t there, and he’s not here. I was hoping he came here.” She sniffed. “I have some other places I was gonna look, and if he’s nowhere, I’ll... I don’t know. Talk Willow and Tara into coming up with some locator spell. I just... I wanted to check if he was here, and I wanted to see you, I wanted....” Tears filled her eyes.

   Joyce pulled her into her arms and caressed her shoulders. “It’ll be okay, Buffy.”

   “I broke him,” Buffy whispered. “I asked too much of him, I broke him. I don’t know what they did to him, but he’s....” She gasped. “I mean, I know they tortured him. But I think it was more. I think... I think he had to do things. Not just Amanda, other things. I....” She sobbed silently, then whispered, “I should have found another way.”

   “This was the best way you could think of at the time.”

   “No, but I used him! Like I always use him, I know how strong he is, and I need people I can rely on, so I just  _ do _ it! I put as much on people as they can handle, more even, because I need to! He’s my partner, my lieutenant, and I put too much on him, and I broke him!”

   “Partner?” Joyce asked. “Soldier? Is that all he is to you?”

   Buffy sniffed. “If I think about what else he is right now,  _ I’ll  _ break.” She gulped. “I can’t bear the idea of....”

   “It’ll be all right, Buffy. We’ll find him.”

   “Not if he walked into the sun, we won’t,” Buffy muttered.

   “I doubt he did that,” Clem said, coming in with a tray. “Here you go, kid. You get that in you.”

   Buffy looked at the three mugs dubiously. One of them had what were clearly mouse tails dangling over the side. “Clem? I don’t drink rat blood.”

   “It’s hot chocolate,” Clem said. “The mice are only in mine.”

   “Clem’s been helping me with that mouse problem in the basement,” Joyce said as Buffy took a sip. It was really good, Clem had put cinnamon in it. She wished Spike were there to share it with. “He has incredible hearing, he can track them right down.”

   “Yeah, well.” Clem waggled his ears. “It helps to have the equipment.”

   “Why don’t you think he dusted himself?” Buffy asked.

   “Because he was talking about traveling. On our way to the school, before that meeting of yours. I said I hoped the demon district wasn’t going down. Not that I’m a big fan of all the blood and gore, but the hellmouth is real nice to live near, and I’d hate to lose my apartment. He said it wasn’t all that, and he planned to travel. Maybe head back across the pond or something, see what this world had to offer.”

   “He wanted to go to England?”

   “Well, yeah,” Clem said. “He said something about how his former always loved the smell of the Thames, and he’d have to take her back there....”

   Buffy set down her chocolate. “I have to go.”

   “Buffy?”

   “I just... I have to. I’ll see you both later. Thanks for the cocoa, Clem, it was really good. Love you, Mom!”

   Joyce was left with Clem again. “She... didn’t mention when it would be safe for me to leave, did she,” Clem said ruefully.

   “No. Would you like me to make up the couch for this evening?”

   “Nah, basement’ll do me fine, unfold that cot I saw down there. See if any of that nest comes out for a midnight snack. You want to watch the History Channel?”

   Joyce chuckled. Her life a few months ago was full of grief, pain, fear, loneliness, and boredom. Now she had a once-wicked sorcerer for a boyfriend, a resurrected surrogate vampire slaying daughter, a vampire for a might-as-well-be-son-in-law, and a demon for a houseguest. She still carried grief for her first daughter, and there was still a healthy dollop of fear, but at least there wasn’t a single dull moment.

***

   “Angel? Angel, if you’re there, pick up,” came Willow’s voice over Angel’s answering machine. Buffy glanced at it as she passed through the living room, but it wasn’t her house. “Well, anyway, I was just trying to get hold of Buffy, if you see her, tell her to call me at the—”

   Buffy jumped over and picked up the phone. “What happened?”

   “Oh, you’re there?” Willow said. “Your mom said you were out.”

   “Yeah, I just came by Angel’s to — doesn’t matter. What did you need?”

   “Oh, I wanted to tell you what Lydia said to me. We went to the school to, I don’t know... debrief or something? Anyway, Travers was... well, kind of a jerk about it, but it turns out that the Watchers actually  _ do _ have a line on which universe you came from. It’s just, it’s pretty far away on the dimensional planes, and they weren’t sure they could get a door open from here to there, but with what I sensed from the scythe... I think I can cut through it. Um... with help. I’d need some support, and maybe a sedative after,” she added with a laugh. “Because it’s kind of scary powerful, but... I mean, I did it before, accidentally, right? Anyway. I think in a week or two, we can maybe try and get you home.”

   Buffy sighed with relief. It was still only a  _ maybe _ , but a maybe was better than the  _ no _ they’d been getting over and over again every time she asked about it.

   “Lydia also asked me if there really wasn’t any way to get our website offline. She didn’t understand. Once something’s online, it’s basically immortal, if you want it to be.”

   Buffy chuckled.

   “What are you doing at Angel’s?”

   “Looking for Spike. Have you seen him?”

   “If he’s at the school, he’s not in the library.”

   “Thanks. Um. Could you, uh... check the basement?”

   “What?”

   “Just... do it. I don’t think he’s down there, but... just…. If you see him, keep him there, and call my Mom’s place?”

   “Yeah, we can look. Later!”

   “Bye.”

   Buffy hung up the phone. It was daylight, technically Angel’s bedtime. No need to wake him for this. She headed upstairs, through the concrete house, to the garret cell that Angel had made for Drusilla. She unlocked and then... well, might as well be polite. She knocked on the door.

   There was no response at first. Then, “Little Red Riding hood comes to see grandmother.”

   Buffy took that as an invitation. She gripped her stake tightly and opened the door. “I take it you’re the wolf in the nightdress?”

   Drusilla sat comfortably in the fairly darkened room, with a doll in her lap. Buffy looked her over, without meeting her eyes. She knew Kendra had died that way. Faith might have been immune, or maybe Drusilla was too cunning to kill one of her two jailers, but that didn’t mean Buffy was safe here. She knew exactly how dangerous Dru was.

   “He’s not here,” Dru said quietly. “He’s not there, not here, not dear.” She looked up at Buffy, and Buffy stared firmly at her chin. “Hallo, dearie.”

   “Hey,” Buffy said. “What have you been saying to Spike? Did you tell him you wanted him back?”

   “He’s not my little Spike. But he is such a handsome knight, no.” Her accent was stronger than Spike’s,  _ moi, Spoike, noight _ . It put Buffy’s teeth on edge. As she watched, the vampiress plunged her fingers into the doll’s eyes. One of them shattered, the little glass segments clicking as they fell into her lap. “He’s too, too deep inside. Even I’m just a memory.”

   “Where is he?”

   “Back in memory,” Dru said. “Hidden angles, broken dreams. You’ll not find him when you go looking,” she added. “You’ll see his eyes, but not his soul. He’ll look, but he can’t see you. The blood makes him blind....”

   “You know, not a big fan of the cryptic,” Buffy said. “Could you clarify?”

   “You broke him,” Drusilla said pointedly. “Wormed your sunlight into his skull, filled him up with fire, rebuilt him in your image. You’re his mummy, now.”

   “I’m not his mother,” Buffy snapped. “I’m his....” She stopped and looked down. The world  _ girlfriend _ seemed so shallow when it came to her and Spike.

   Movement caught her eye, and suddenly there was Drusilla, standing not ten inches before her, staring into her eyes. Buffy tried to look away, but those eyes... they’d caught her.... “You’re  _ the one _ ,” she said softly.

   The world faded away. Life ended, reality wasn’t real. “Been waiting and waiting and waiting for you, he has. He never found you. Destiny twisted, took you from Angel, never needed my pretty Spike, they stole him then. Gave the world to us. Too many gaps, let you fall through the cracks, back into the oven. Burn, baby, burn, baby, run, rabbit, run. Fire in the blood. Cauterize with the burning of the blood....”

   There was nothing. But she was Buffy, so she fought the nothing, lashing out, flailing, refusing to go gentle into that good night. She fought the nothing, and the nothing faded, backed away, left her lying on the floor, wetness spreading over her shirt. She slapped her hand over the wound on her throat.

   Drusilla was backing away. She sat down by the fire and took up one of her dolls, rocking, rocking, rocking. “You taste like ashes,” she said plaintively.

   Shit. Buffy looked down. Her shirt was ruined. Bad spot to be bitten on, how much blood had she lost? She scrambled to her feet, and snatched up the vault key from the floor. She was shocked Dru hadn’t killed her and used the opportunity to escape. Why the hell had Dru left her alive? Yeah, she’d been fighting, but not well. She had been extremely lucky here. Damn. She should have woken Angel…. Well, she’d know better next time. 

   “It’s not ashes he needs,” Drusilla said. “He’s been dining on them far too long. He needs coals, fresh and hot, burning clear and bright.” She looked up at Buffy. “Have you burned long enough? Keep you baking in the fire, in the fire....” She started to hum. Buffy glanced down at the doll and wished she hadn’t. Drusilla had replaced the doll’s head with the carcass of a tortured white rat.

   “He’s buried himself alive,” she said then, very clearly. “You’ll find him in the grave. You know where.”

   “Thank you,” Buffy said. She took that one cogent bit of information, filed everything else Drusilla had said away for later, and unlocked the door, carefully latching it behind her as she went.

   She ran down the stairs. She was sick of walking. She hadn’t taken Joyce’s car, because she hadn’t wanted to leave her trapped in case there was some kind of sudden evacuation or something — she didn’t trust the military not to overreact now they had access to the demon district — but Angel had one, didn’t he? She didn’t drive real well, but it wasn’t like she didn’t know how. “Angel?” she said softly, going to his bedroom. “Angel, do you mind if I borrow....”  

   She trailed off. Angel and Faith were curled up together on his bed. She could see enough of them beneath the covers she was pretty sure they were naked. She had an odd moment, seeing them. There was a time in her life when the idea of Angel with Faith filled her with a kind of burning jealousy that would poison her for days. She stopped and stared, as if hoping that feeling would rise again. She heard an echo of it, more a memory of those other times, but mostly what she felt looking at them was fond. Fondness for both of them. Good. This Angel deserved as much happiness as he could find. And he was very good for Faith.

   She slipped back out the door, lifted his keys off the wall, and left a note instead. “I stole your car. I’ll give it back tonight, if I don’t wreck it. Buffy.”

      


***

 

   It felt a lot like going back to the beginning. His crypt was the same as it had been when he first moved in, nothing but skeletons and spiderwebs. He’d been in a tizzy in the shower, trying to figure out how to explain everything to Buffy, when she’d offered him a reprieve and vanished to get fresh clothes. Then... he didn’t know what overcame him, but he just ran. He didn’t want to face her anymore. He fled back into the sewers in his damp and still blood-smelling clothes, and just kept going. His own Sunnydale was gone, but he still knew these tunnels, and his feet took him back to Restfield before he’d even decided where he was headed.

   There was no lower door blocking off the tunnels from the chamber under the crypt. There was no ladder to the upper level, even, though some vampire or other had leaned a big board up to the gap in the floor, to make climbing easier. Spike’s old crypt had originally just been an access point when he’d moved in, a way in and out of the tunnels into the cemetery. A way for vampires to check on and recruit newborns as they rose, bringing them in to be minions. He’d blocked it off, claimed the crypt as his, made the whole cemetery basically his playground. Played the Big Bad in his limited way, chipped up and handicapped as he had been.

   He climbed the board and found himself in the same old crypt, its frosted barred windows, its heavy old door, its strange concrete sarcophagi. Sunnydale really did attract a bit of a goth crowd, for a sweet little California town. Most people outside of places like New Orleans didn’t go for above-ground sepulchers. Still, it gave him a place to hang his hat....

   He tried to plot out his next move. Maybe he’d get this place spruced up a little again, play the whole chipped-up routine. Get a fridge, a chair, maybe a mattress, and settle in to stay out of the way of the humans as much as possible. He wasn’t sure he was equipped to take over Drusilla completely yet. He had to get full off the human blood first, and maybe wait just a little for his head to stop swirling. And deal with Buffy....

   Once all that was sorted, once he’d got established, he’d approach Angel, offer to take his errant fledge off his guilt-heavy hands. He knew he could take better care of her than Angel could, he was good at it, even if he added in the goal of keeping the girl from killing. It’d be good for Angel, too. He wouldn’t have to look at what he’d done to the chit. Better for her, better for Angel, and give Spike something to do with himself. ‘Cause it wasn’t as if he could go playing the do-gooder anymore. That ship had sailed. He wasn’t going to be evil anymore. He couldn’t. But knew he wasn’t good.

   He had tucked his coat under his head, and was lying on the top of the sarcophagus when Buffy came pounding in. Well, he’d known she’d find him eventually. If he was really trying to hide, he’d have gone somewhere unfamiliar. “You should learn to knock, Slayer,” he said evenly, still staring at the ceiling.

   Buffy sighed with relief. “God, Spike, what the hell? Scared me half to death. I thought you might have gone for a walk or something.”

   The thought had occurred to him, but felt like cheating. Particularly when there were a few decent roles he could play in this world. “Just didn’t feel like hanging about,” he said.

   Buffy took hold of his hand, and he pulled carefully away.

   “Spike.”

   He stood up, facing away from her. He really didn’t know how to say any of this.

   “Spike! Will you look at me?” She snuck in around him and forced herself into his line of vision. She had a new bandage on her neck.

   “Just wanted to be alone for a bit.” 

   “Why?” Buffy’s face was so hurt. She’d lost weight. He’d always thought she was a little too skinny, it bothered him that he didn’t worry about that now. “Spike, you’ve been alone for weeks. Months, even. What happened? Why’d you run away? Why’d you stop coming to see me?”

   Spike rolled his eyes. “Don’t matter. Look, I’m fine, all right? Not trying for a new tan. Go finish the clean up, I’m sure there’s still plenty of nasties hiding in their bungalows or hunkered in the sewers waiting for nightfall.”

   “I’ve done enough for today,” Buffy said. “We’ve all done enough. I wanted to stop for a bit. Take a break from it all. With you.”

   He shrugged.

   “Spike, do you think I haven’t missed you?”

   “I know you have,” he said. He really wished her pain bothered him, but he still couldn’t feel it. It was like those screams when his minions brought a victim back. He knew he should care. If it got bad enough, he’d probably do  _ something _ . But that something would probably just be get out of the way....

   Buffy’s eyes searched his face, and he felt nothing. He didn’t want to catch her up. He didn’t want to hold her. He didn’t want... anything from her. Except maybe for her to go away. She was getting in the way of his misery. That was his closest friend, now, not her. He was finally starting to understand Angel’s brooding....

   “Willow called,” Buffy said. “She said the Watcher’s Council has a line on our universe. We can go home, Spike.” Spike stared into the nothing he felt at those words. “Spike? Did you hear me? We can go home.”

   “You can,” he said. “I’m glad. Say hey to the niblet for me.”

   Buffy blinked. “What? What?”

   She was so thrown she’d had to ask twice, apparently. “Go back to your witch,” he said. “Let her send you back. I’m glad for you.”

   “Spike, what are you saying?”

   He turned away from her. “I’m not going with you.” 

   “Don’t be ridiculous. You’re going back home with me.”

   “No, I’m not,” he said. “I’m here, this place needs me. Angel needs help with Dru, there’s a whole slew of Big Bads I can fight, and if you’re going, they’ll need me more than ever. But you should go back.” He was going to list all the things about home that needed her, but he couldn’t. They were just too hard to say, starting with Dawn, and ending with... everything. “You should go back.”

   “Spike, you’re being a dope! Now come on! Just come home with me, I’ll introduce you to Mom, we can have some hot cocoa, and we can talk about this. About  _ all  _ of this. We can fix it.”

   She didn’t even know what she was talking about. “There’s nothing to fix, Buffy. It’s over.”

   “What is?”

   He looked up at her finally. “What do you think?”

   “Are you... breaking up with me?”

   “Yeah, I guess I am.”

    Buffy stared at him. “Don’t you love me anymore?”

   He shrugged. “Dunno if I ever did.”

   Buffy hit him for that one. He’d half expected her to. He chuckled, wryly touching his cheek. “Guess I earned that.”

   “Shut up,” Buffy snarled. “You’re gonna talk to me, Spike. And you’re not going to play this stupid lie about not loving me.”

   “Can’t love, can I? Just a thing, aren’t I?”

   “You’ve never believed that. Hell, even _ I  _ didn’t believe that, even when I was saying it, and that was even  _ before _ the soul!”

   “I don’t have a soul,” he whispered.

   Buffy started. “Yes, you do.”

   He shook his head. “How do you know?” he asked. “What’s that mean, a soul? How do you know I have one? How do you know  _ you _ do? What makes you think the Master didn’t? What’s the damn difference, anyway?”

   “The difference is, that you chose to be better,” Buffy said. “The difference is that a murder victim called William was brought back inside this demon. This demon that always had his heart and his mind and his shape, the difference is that you’re  _ you _ in there! All of you! And you chose this soul so you wouldn’t screw up, so you’d know what was right, so you’d _ feel... everything! _ ”

   “Like I said,” Spike said. “I don’t have a soul.” He turned away.

   “Does that mean you’re a killer again? Is that what that means?”

   “No. I’m not gonna go around killing. It just means I don’t feel anything. Not for you. Not for anything.”

   There was a heavy pause after that. “So that’s it, then?” she demanded. “You make some unilateral decision, and just walk off, like everyone else has walked off, right? That’s what I get?”

   Spike shrugged.

   “And let me guess. This is all my fault, right? Because I sent you away, because I sent you on this mission? You’re bailing, and I did it. Right?”

   “No, love,” he said softly. “I did it. I did all of it. That’s the point.”

   “No,” she said. “Look, we both knew this was going to be hard. But I told you, I trusted you to stay you in there, and I’m sure you have!”

   “Buffy, you don’t know what all I’ve done.”

   “I know you killed Ethan Rayne,” she said, surprising him. How did she know that? “I know you’ve been drinking human blood, almost exclusively. I know, I know you led a raid on a school that killed no less than ten teenage kids. I know you let hundreds of people die, all around you, every day. I know you’ve probably had to kill, victims who couldn’t defend themselves. I know you spent a whole night torturing an innocent girl. I know you burned someone Christmas Eve, I’m hoping not alive, but I don’t know. And I know you’ve been fucking Harmony,” she added, startling him all over again. “And possibly even Drusilla, depending on how badly she needed it, and how likely you thought it was that it was over between us.”

   She… knew a lot, it seemed. Then she probably understood. “Don’t forget, I stood you up, too.”

   Buffy looked down. “I wasn’t going to mention that.”

   “Why not? Hurt you, didn’t it?” He could tell by her face that it had. “I can think of only one moment I might have hurt you more.”

   “I can think of two,” Buffy said. “And both involved you leaving me all alone after.” She gazed into his eyes. “Don’t make it three.”

   “I’m not whoever it is you think you love, Buffy,” he said. “I’m pretty sure I never was. I was trying to wear that white coat, but it didn’t fit.”

   “And the black one does? The evil does? I thought you liked that white coat.”

   “I did,” he confessed. “That doesn’t mean it fit. If there’s one thing these last weeks have taught me, it’s that I know the Big Bad. It’s too easy to fall back to it. I am what I am, love... and regardless of the Popeye nature of that statement,” he said, realizing what he’d just said, “you’re better off with me out of the picture.”

   “Say that one more time, and I’ll hit you again!” Buffy snapped. “Angel played that stupid card, my well being is _ my  _ choice to make, dammit!”

   “Yeah, it is. Go and pick up with some other bastard, I can’t stop you. Hell, pick up with Angel, this one seems a little more like a grown-up. But whatever you decide, I can take  _ this  _ murdering demon out of your life.” He strode up to her. He really wished he felt bad about this, but he felt nothing.  _ Nothing. _ “Now. I’d like to be alone. It’s a pretty sunny day out there,” he said gesturing toward the door. “In five minutes, one of us is going for a walk. I’d rather it wasn’t me, but that’s up to you.”

   “Oh, fuck you!” Buffy said, pushing him away from her. “Fuck you and your stupid games. That’s not funny, it’s not noble, and it’s not romantic, Spike.” She grabbed him by the damp shirt. “Come on, this isn’t you! You were more you when you were insane, dammit! Come on!” She shook him a little.

   He took hold of her hands, really wishing her fury was helping. It wasn’t. He still felt nothing. “That’s not gonna work, love,” he said gently. He put her away. “It’s just done.”

   She searched his eyes. “Where are you?”

   He didn’t have an answer. “I don’t know,” he said honestly. “But I’m not with you anymore.” He stepped away from her.

   “I don’t accept that,” she said softly. “You don’t get to break up with me when you’re not even  _ you _ .”

   He shrugged. She could say she didn’t accept it all she liked. The reality was clear.

   “Oh, go to hell,” she muttered.  _ Already there, love, _ he thought. She stalked off and threw open the door. “We’re not done here!” she announced before she left. But at least she left.

   Except she didn’t. An hour later she pounded on the door, opened it without waiting for an invite, and came in laden with a sleeping bag, a blow up mattress, a cooler full of pigs blood, and a set of clean clothes. Spike almost found a smile as he shook his head. Well, she was persistent. He knew that about her. She’d figure it out eventually. And soon she’d be gone, and he wouldn’t have to worry about her anymore. He was glad about that.

   She dropped her offerings on the floor. “Don’t! Say a word,” she said, holding up her hand. “I’m still pissed at you.” She stalked off and headed out the door. “And I’m still not done!”


	37. Chapter 37

  
  


   “So,” Buffy said to the Scooby gang, which in this instance included her mom, since the meeting was held in her living room. “I’m gonna have to figure out something. I can’t leave it like this.”

   “Is there really anything you can do to change his mind?” Xander asked. “I mean, when someone decides they don’t love you, I mean....” He glanced at Cordelia. “Not much you can do about it.”

   “That’s not what’s going on,” Buffy said. “I wouldn’t have called a Scooby meeting for a lover’s spat. It’s not just about me, he’s saying he doesn’t even want to go back home. Something’s wrong. This is an intervention for a fellow soldier. He’s having some kind of stress reaction, and time isn’t fixing it.”

   “Well, it’s only been three days,” Faith said. “I mean, we were both behind enemy lines, and I’m still a bit keyed up over it all. Bit much to ask him to get better all at once.”

   “I know, but I don’t have time for this,” Buffy said. “I need him to come back with me. To my world, I can’t just abandon him here.”

   “Well. Maybe you could send him on later?” Joyce asked, sounding doubtful.

   “It wouldn’t work that way,” Willow said. “I can send Buffy through the portal, since it was all about her, and worked through the whole Slayery thing. Spike could go with her, but I couldn’t open it up again just to send him alone. And I probably couldn’t just bring her back again, either. It was a bit of a miracle that she got here in the first place.”

   “It might have actually  _ been _ a miracle,” Giles said. “There’s some indication that the Powers That Be had some hand in this mistaken spell of Willow’s, according to Travers.”

   Buffy rolled her eyes. “I hate the Powers. If they had real powers, they’d use them.”

   “I think they keep working whether you believe in them or not, Buffy,” Angel said. “I think that’s the point. They brought us together.”

   “No, some jerk demon with a Brooklyn accent told you to stalk a fifteen year old girl,” Buffy said. “That’s what brought you and this world’s Buffy together, not destiny. You don’t know who Whistler was working for, or why, or if they were good or not. Look, I’m not pretending they don’t exist, I’m just saying their say-so isn’t destiny. Clearly there’s some demon or power or something that tries to get its fingers into the pie. I don’t have to jump when they say triple axel.”

   “That... flies in the face of everything we are taught as Watchers,” Wesley said. Buffy had invited him for two reasons; one, she knew he had been very useful to Angel in her own world, so she knew how reliable he could be, and two, she wanted to get him involved with the group. The last thing she wanted was Amanda alienated, and the best way of doing that was full immersion of both her and Wesley. Sort of a mini-Dawn kind of arrangement, a little sister. Amanda herself was still in the hospital, but Buffy felt she could get Wesley grandfathered in before she left.

   “I know it does,” Buffy said. “And I know you and Angel and probably Giles are all big Powers That Be fans. But if some super-duper being from on-high was the one who decided that I, the great and powerful Buffy, was needed to help with this world, I say there were better ways. Ways that didn’t rip me and Spike from our chosen family and drop us into this hellhole without our say-so, dammit.” She shook her head. “I’d much rather believe it was an accident.”

   “Well, it might have been,” Giles said. “But regardless, the possibility of the Powers’ involvement is one of the reasons Travers wanted you sent on your way quickly. Faith’s Cruciamentum notwithstanding, he believes you could be tangling the paths of destiny for this world.”

   “We’ve no intention of instigating that for you, by the way,” Wesley said suddenly to Faith. “Quentin and I agreed that your ordeal within the Master’s demon district was more than ample to prove your fitness as a slayer. As for the tradition itself... well....”

   Faith and Buffy stared at him.

   “Neither the original Buffy nor Kendra survived to an age where it was even implemented. This makes three generations of slayers now. I plan to petition to see it abolished.”

   “You know I’m on board there,” Giles said.

   “The girls won’t let you play that game, soon,” Buffy said. “You really don’t understand how useful it is to get them talking to each other, and talking to the active slayer.”

   “I’ve only been on the bulletin board once,” Faith said. “It was a hoot. I kind of like being famous around girls who don’t want to kill me. Even if it’s all in the virtch.”

   “The...?”

   “Virtual reality,” Buffy said. “Welcome to the twenty-first century, Wes. Just one more year, now. Anyway, whatever Quentin’s feelings on the subject, powers or destiny or not, I  _ don’t _ want to stay here any longer than I have to. And Spike needs to come with me. He just does, and I need to figure out a way to... I don’t know. Jumpstart his healing process.”

   “It might take a lot,” Angel said. “I know it took me a hundred years to get even half as good as he was when I met him. This Spike, I mean. If he’s back to where I was just after I got my soul....” He shook his head. “I wouldn’t wish that on... well. Not even a vampire.”

   “This isn’t the soul that’s doing this,” Buffy said. “I think that’s the problem. It’s like he can’t find it, like it got... wounded or something. He says it’s not there.”

   “Is he right?” Giles asked. 

   “His soul is sealed, it’s got to be there. It wouldn’t have been stripped off or anything. I just think he can’t feel it.”

   “If he can’t feel it, wouldn’t he be off killing?”

   “No,” Buffy said. “Probably not. Maybe. Spike’s... complicated when it comes to killing. He’d been off human blood for years before he went for the soul option.”

   “Well, maybe that’s part of the problem,” Angel said. “Human blood does things to you. It’s something you have to be very careful with, or it changes the way you feel about things.”

   “What exactly  _ does _ it do?” Giles asked. Buffy rolled her eyes. He’d been asking that question of her for weeks, and she only knew a little.

   Angel sighed, glanced at Cordelia, glanced at Buffy, and then sighed again. “It makes you impulsive,” he said. “Makes you forget there might be consequences to things. It’s a little like being drunk maybe, or like certain kinds of drugs. And if... if you haven’t been taking it for a while, the effect is sort of, uh... heightened.”

   “Oh,” Cordelia said suddenly.

   Angel shrugged.

   Cordy blushed. “Well, Spike’s not taking that anymore, right? Now that he’s not undercover?”

   “No, he’s been off for three days,” Buffy said.

   “He’ll still be in withdrawal, then,” Angel said.

   “Oh, shit, he is, isn’t he,” Buffy muttered. “Damn.” The idea of him pale and shivering, hugging himself like he did chained in Giles’ bathroom, roaring with desperation like he had been when she’d gotten him isolated from the First’s influence, god. The idea was like a punch in the gut.

   “How long does that last?” Faith asked. 

   “It depends on how long he’s been on it,” Angel said. “I’ve gotten off it a few times. The first time was the worst. I... I nearly let myself dust. I was all alone, though. It’s harder, then.”

   “Spike’s all alone,” Tara pointed out.

   “That was his dumb choice!” Buffy snapped. Her emotions around Spike swirled and swirled. She missed him fiercely, felt pain at his pain, felt guilt that it was all her fault, and exasperated that he wouldn’t let her help. Every time she showed up he was cold to her, and would throw her out within a few minutes. She hadn’t seen any active signs of withdrawal, but again, he hadn’t let her stay for very long. He could probably fake it for a bit.

   “What does the withdrawal feel like?” Giles asked.

   “It’s not just one feeling,” Angel said. “There’s the physical, yeah, but there’s behavioral and social and psychological things you’re withdrawing from, too. I mean, there’s the hunger, wanting that taste, and that’s like... a gnawing sort of pain. But there’s also the behavioral bit. The stalk and the hunt, the things that bring you the blood, that’s part of it, and you want that too, even when that pain isn’t there. Then there’s the social aspect, that was the hardest for me. Having to give up my sire and those who used to hunt with me.”

   “Like Spike and Dru,” Faith said.

   “Yeah,” Angel said. “But my bet is it’s the psychological that’s really biting at Spike most right now. I mean, he wasn’t hunting really, and you’ve been supplying him with animal blood, so the craving would be... muted. I don’t think he’s missing the other vampires.”

   “Oh, he could be,” Buffy muttered, still thinking of Harmony. She knew he had his reasons. Knowing how the Master worked, they were probably extremely good ones. She’d ask one day. It wouldn’t have been bugging her now if Spike had taken her into his arms and she had him back already, but with him pulling away like this....

   “I’m sure he’s not,” Angel said quietly. “I know Spike. He was miserable in that vineyard. But there comes a point there when the craving just makes you crash. Everything goes dark, and it feels like you’ll never feel happy again. The physical withdrawal is probably gone, or going by now, but the psychological could last for weeks. Months, even.”

   “How long did it last for you?” Giles asked.

   “Well, let’s see,” Angel said glancing at Faith. “It’s 1999 now?”

   “All right, we get the point,” Buffy said. “The guy’s likely to be depressed for decades if we don’t get him out of this.”

   “Well, just c-crashing into his safe space is-isn’t likely to help, is it?” Tara asked. “I mean, if he wanted support, he’d ask for it. If not from you, Buffy, then from you, maybe?” she asked Angel.

   “I came by,” Angel said. “He didn’t shove me out, but he wasn’t welcoming. I don’t think he wanted me to help, either.”

   “Yeah, that’s the problem,” Buffy said. “I can’t just  _ make _ him take the things that will make him better.” She’d shaken this around and around in her head over and over for days now.

   “Well, if he  _ would  _ accept it, what  _ could _ make the guy feel better?” Xander asked.

   “Me,” Buffy said.

   “That wasn’t really what I meant, Buff.”

   “She’s right, though,” Angel said. “Companionship. Things he usually enjoys, so... I don’t know. Loud music and a good brawl, maybe. And actually, if you could get him to take just a nip of human blood, that would help.”

   “Wouldn’t that just spark his addiction all over again?” Wesley asked.

   “Hair of the dog,” Angel said. “I don’t know if it really works with alcohol, but I know it works with blood. Like alcohol, a nip at lunchtime one day won’t make you an addict again,” he said, looking again at Cordelia. “But just getting a swallow would lift that depression enough that it wouldn’t feel eternal.”

   “Well, that’s out,” Buffy said.

   “Why? I can pick up some donor blood, wouldn’t be a big—”

   “He won’t take it,” Buffy said darkly. “He won’t. He doesn’t take human blood  _ at all, _ anymore, not even donated, not unless it’s....” She stopped. That was personal. Hell, that was nearly  _ spiritual _ . “He destroyed all the tanks,” she said. “I think it would be traumatic.”

   There was a glum silence. Buffy wished she were back home. She looked around the circle at them all — Giles, Willow, Xander. And Angel and Faith. And then the ones who couldn’t have been there in her own universe, Tara and Wesley and Joyce. All of them. They weren’t the right people.

   None of these people even knew Spike. They knew she loved him, and they cared about her because they’d cared about that other Buffy, who was dead. But they didn’t know what Spike was like. Even Angel had only known an evil version of the man. They didn’t know how he’d sing to himself in the car. They didn’t know how he chattered to the television, as if the characters could hear him. They didn’t know he’d snuggle kittens on the sly. They didn’t know he cried at movies. They didn’t know him. Her own Scoobies knew him, and yes, they’d had their problems, but he was real to them. These people... they looked like her friends, and thought like them, and acted like them, but dammit, they were all strangers.

   She missed Spike.

   “Shame you can’t just go back to before all this happened,” Xander said ruefully. “You two seemed really happy together.”

   “Yeah, well, I can’t just give him a magic pill and make him feel like he did before!” Buffy snapped.

   “We’re only trying to help,” Giles said quietly.

   “Well, don’t just throw platitudes at me! If you have a real suggestion, I’m open to it, but—”

   “Buffy,” Joyce said suddenly. “We know this is hard. We’ll all keep thinking. But I think it’s time for a break. Refreshments, anyone?”

   Buffy sighed. Joyce was right, Scooby meetings did tend to go a little better with snacks. And they were stalled. “Yeah, okay.”

   “Good. Ripper, honey, why don’t you help me in the kitchen. I bought cookies.”

   Xander’s idea of going back, and the words Ripper and cookies all snapped together in Buffy’s mind.

   “Wait a minute!” she called out. “I think I have an idea.”

 

***

 

   “Ow!” Spike snatched his hand back and sucked at his burned fingers. The candle he was trying to light was so burned down, the wick so tiny, it was hard getting the Zippo in to light it. He finally took a stick from one of the vines growing off the walls, and used it as an impromptu match. Getting enough candles for illumination had been a bitch. He’d been able to scavenge a bunch of other things to make at least the upper chamber of the crypt a little more homely — a couple sagging chairs, a threadbare rug or two, and some discarded paperbacks in a bookcase that would have fallen over if it hadn’t been leaning against the wall — but candles had been tough. And he loved candlelight.

   In his own world when he’d wanted to trick out his crypt he’d just stolen them, broken into a couple stores and cleaned them out. He wasn’t a thief anymore, so that was off the table. Finally he’d raided the trash cans behind a few churches. The candles he found that way were almost spent, but there were some.

   He’d also replaced the air mattress with one he’d found on the side of the road. It was stained, but it had been out in the sun enough days that it didn’t smell of anything foul, and he’d put a sheet over it that he’d gotten from the lost-and-found at the laundrette. The blow-up mattress Buffy had supplied him with hadn’t survived the first day of nightmares.

_ He’d _ barely survived the first few days of nightmares. Amanda turned, and screaming as he was forced to violate her; Harmony going for his throat; Faith trying to dust him; Drusilla falling to her death, lying dead on the ground like Buffy. He never dreamed of Buffy. It was as if his mind had cut her completely out of his psyche. But he dreamed of the Master, crawling out of his chest, resurrecting himself out of Spike’s own spilled blood, his own body metamorphosing into him. And he dreamed of the Anointed One, of being him beaten against the wall, or burning to death in a cage in the sunlight. And he dreamed of his victims, dying in his arms. He dreamed of being his own victim, the blood drained away, screaming for it. And all of it melded with that ancient demonic hunger for the blood he didn’t want to want.

   Finally he’d stopped trying to sleep altogether. He’d doze until the dreams started, and then force himself awake, pace, read, punch the wall a few times, go for a walk if it was night, then rest again for a few minutes. It wasn’t fun, but it was working. Sort of.

   The withdrawal was harder this time than it had ever been, even the first time when he’d been chipped up and homeless. He figured it was because this time, it was all his own fault. The first time he’d gotten off human blood, he’d been soulless and frustrated, so he’d been able to channel that into rage — impotent rage, maybe, but rage. The second time he’d had a soul, but the blood was something the First had imposed on him without his will, so it had almost felt good, the withdrawal reaction. As if it was purging him of someone else’s evil. This time,  _ he’d _ taken the blood, and _ he _ had chosen to stop it, and every second of the withdrawal was a war, some internal cage-match he didn’t want to referee, so the two sides broke every rule and just pummeled at each other.

   He wished Buffy would stop coming. Every single damn evening she’d come. Sometimes she’d bring blood, sometimes she’d try to talk to him, and he just wanted to her go the hell away. It had been a week now, hadn’t she gotten the hint?

   It seemed she hadn’t. Sun sets, and she appears. “Get out,” he said without turning around.

   “No,” she said, with a tone he recognized. It was his. He used to pull this shit on her, not leaving her alone in her misery, no matter how much she wanted him to. God, it was annoying.

   “For god’s sake, can’t you let me rest in peace?” he snapped.

   “I will,” she said. “Eventually.”

   Spike rolled his eyes.

   “I don’t accept this,” she said.

   “Well, you bloody well have to!” he yelled, rounding on her.

   “I know that,” she said. “If you really don’t want to be with me anymore... I do have to accept that.”

   Spike raised his eyebrow. This was a change of tune.

   “But this isn’t you, Spike. I know you love me.”    

   “See, I’m remembering this conversation,” he said. “But we seem to each have the wrong script. Here, let me see if I remember the next line.... You have to let go, so we can both move on.”

   “Yeah, you think I haven’t caught the dramatic irony?” Buffy demanded. “I may not have an English degree from Cambridge, but I’ve taken a Lit course or two.”

   “So you know where we end up if you don’t let this go,” Spike snapped. She just looked at him, her eyes soft and pained. He couldn’t care. He couldn’t. Feel. Anything. “It’s done, Buffy,” he said softly. “It’s just done.”

   “You’re right,” she said. “It is. Because you’re not the man I fell in love with.”

   “Kewpie doll for the lady,” Spike said ruefully. 

   “Which is why I don’t accept you breaking up with me,” she said. “ _ He _ wouldn’t. He loves me. I want to talk to him.”

   “He’s gone.”

   “He’s not gone.”

   “I  _ ate him _ ,” Spike snapped.

   Buffy took a step forward. “That means he’s inside there somewhere. And I want to see him again.”

   “You can’t.”

   Buffy took something out of the bag over her shoulder. She set it down on the sarcophagus with a clink, and took off the cling wrap over the top of it. “Yeah, I can.” She looked up at Spike. “Recognize these?”

   Sugar cookies. They were a slightly different shape than the ones Ethan Rayne had been peddling, but the smell was similar, and she wouldn’t have asked if that wasn’t what she meant. He actually chuckled. It was insane. “You wouldn’t be real fond of silly Willy, the sixteen year old poet, love,” he said cynically. “You think my later stuff was bloody awful.”

   “These wouldn’t make you feel sixteen,” Buffy said. “It’s a special formula, had it made up just for you. Took days to work out the alterations to the spell, to make it work for a vampire, to bring you back to the right point in your history. But we got it. Between Giles, who knew the spell, and Willow and Tara to do the alterations... we got it. It wouldn’t make you feel like a teenager. It would just take you back before all this. Before the Master, and before the blood. Before you came to this place....”

   “You think that’ll make it all go away?”

   “No,” Buffy said. “I know it won’t.”

   “Then why bother? It’s not going to change anything.”

   “Maybe not. But if you’re not my Spike, then at least this would give me a chance to say goodbye to him. I think I deserve that much.”

   He didn’t know what she deserved. Some part of him was a bit angry with her. He’d been  _ happy _ before she sent him off on this stupid quest, for a weapon that might as well have dusted him for all of his  _ self _ it had left.

   “Look, it’s not a forever decision. It’s just tonight, you know?” she said. “And if in the morning you want me to walk away... then I guess I’ll have to do that. But I don’t want to leave this world without seeing my lover one more time. I miss him.”

   God, she looked miserable. He could still recognize it, even if he couldn’t feel it. He wished he wanted to hold her. He didn’t.

   “Anyway, it’s up to you,” she said. “You can take them, or not. You can double down on the break up, or do... whatever you’re gonna do. I’ll leave you to make your decision. I’ll be back in an hour.”

   “It can’t change anything!” he called to her as she left.

   She paused. “I’ll be back in an hour,” she said again. She closed the door behind her.

   Spike scoffed. Stupid, flighty woman, bug-shagging crazy, she was. As if just getting pissed on mystical sugar cookies could erase the things he’d done. Could make him feel like he did before he got to this place, could remind him what it was like to be Buffy’s lover, to have a place in the universe, to not be all alone anymore....

   As if the sweetness could erase the pain.

   He’d always liked biscuits. Even in the old days with Dru, setting down to tea and biscuits and blood, crumbs scattered along the tablecloths....

_  I don’t come back with tea and biscuits, it’s all very lonely.  _ Wasn’t that what Drusilla had said? Just after she’d said she wasn’t a dolphin. Barmy.

   No. She hadn’t said dolphin. She’d said porpoise.  _ I’m not a porpoise. I don’t make an excuse. _

   A purpose. Drusilla wasn’t a purpose.

   Spike rubbed his face. He didn’t know what to do, how to think, how to feel. He  _ couldn’t _ feel. That was the whole point. Why was this? He used to feel so much! He was all feeling, love and hate and lust and power and rage and happiness, he used to feel it all. Buffy used to make him feel so alive.... He missed that. He missed it like he’d miss his own soul....

   Which was why he felt he didn’t have one.

   Damn things did smell good.

   Spike sat down on the sarcophagus and glared at them. They were on one of Joyce’s little plates with the violets on....

   With a sense of futility, he reached down and took one, staring at it for a moment. Golden brown, baked to perfection, a little sparkling dusting of sugar over the top, glittering in the candle light. He sniffed it. It smelled sweet, with hints of butter and vanilla. It didn’t taste bad at all. 

   Within a few moments Spike had buckled down and eaten every single one of Buffy’s cookies.

 

***

 

   Spike was cursing his lighter again, wrestling with this god damn candle. Bloody thing wouldn’t stay lit. He poured the spare wax to the side so it wouldn’t pool, but the wick was just too weak, and it kept winking out. Stupid second-rate Jesus-piss that it was, he should go break into the import store, clear out their votive section. That would fix this place up right.

   He was just getting it into his head to do just that when the door to his crypt opened, and in wafted the most delectable smell he’d had the benefit of experiencing in he couldn’t think how long. Oh, yeah. He didn’t have time to go cat-burgling tonight. Buffy Summers was in town.

   And he was gonna kill himself a slayer.


	38. Chapter 38

  
  


   Buffy didn’t know exactly what would meet her when she opened the crypt door. There was every chance that he’d have chucked the cookies out the door and... well, that probably meant it was all over, didn’t it. But there were other possibilities. The cookies might not have worked at all, or only worked partially. Or she might have gotten her timing off, and landed on a Spike who was fully and wholly evil. She had put a few safeguards into the cookies just in case that happened, and regardless she planned on standing guard over Spike all night, no matter what the cookies did to him. The last thing he would want would be to do something evil and have to field the guilt for that on top of these last months.

   “Spike?” she asked. It was darker than when she’d left, the twilight sunk fully into night in the ensuing hour. Spike’s candles were mostly lit, bathing the familiar crypt in a flickering glow. It was suspiciously still. She’d been watching the crypt from the cemetery, so he hadn’t left, or if he had, it was through the tunnels. The silence was eerie... and false. She could sense his presence, just a hint of vampire signature, creeping up her spine in the darkness. “Spike?”

   The movement startled her, as did the hand that grabbed her from out of the darkness. He went straight for the throat, throttling the life out of her. She knocked his arms aside, kneed him in the belly, and then punched him away, gasping. Well, that answered that question at least. He’d taken the cookies.

   Spike staggered back along the concrete floor and chuckled at her. “You should be more careful, wandering into a bloke’s crypt after dark.” He stood up straight and grinned. “Girl could get hurt.”

   Well, it had worked so far. That dead look was out of his eyes. It was such a relief to see him looking alive for once that Buffy nearly ran and hugged him, but given that he had just tried to kill her, probably not the best of plans just yet. He looked lots better, though. Not just his eyes, but his expression, his stance. He was still too thin, and his clothes weren’t as pristine as he used to keep them, and his hair was mussed and curly, but his eyes were blue and bright, and his mouth had regained its sly softness.

   Buffy warily circled around the crypt, on full alert. He was predatory as he paced her, with a look of sheer joy in his eyes. “Do you know who I am?” she asked.

   “You’re the slayer,” he said with a grin. They had circled to opposite sides of the sarcophagus now. He leaned down with his fists on the concrete. “And who did you think _ I  _ was?”

   “Give me a break, Spike,” Buffy said. She didn’t know exactly how the cookies were going to affect him. His real life, his future life, should feel like a dream, but it shouldn’t have been gone. “We’re not starting over.”

   His grin broadened. “Yeah, well, I don’t have any cute little government chips in my head these days,” he said. He looked over Buffy’s body in that way he used to have, sly, predatory, dangerous. It had always made her heart race, even when it had pissed her off. Now... now she just thought how much she’d missed it. “So I can do what I want.”

   “Oh? And what was that?”

   With a deep throated growl of longing, Spike vamped up. “To kill you.”

   Buffy knew she should be scared of this, but... it was Spike. The cookie safeguards meant he wasn’t likely to be able to kill her unless he just snapped her neck or something, and they used to play this. Vampire and Slayer, hunting each other, fighting, bantering, falling into exquisite sex. Granted, this time, it wasn’t play acting. He meant every bit of it. But it was still Spike.

   She probably surprised him when she broke into a laugh. “Gotta catch me first!” she taunted, and made a backflip out the open crypt door.

   It took him a beat, but, “Buffy? Buffy!” He snarled and raced out after her, into the California night.

   Buffy did a quick assessment of Restfield. If she went south, then around by the yew trees, west toward the Alpert memorial, made a right at the weeping angels.... She had the course now. She led Spike a merry old chase, sometimes outpacing him on a straightaway, sometimes darting behind some large crypt or other. Occasionally she’d stop in a picturesque corner and let him catch up. The fight was glorious. He wasn’t holding back at all, something she hadn’t seen of him in years. Of course, usually he didn’t  _ mean it _ about actually wanting to kill her, and okay, so he did right now. For now. The cookies would catch him up eventually, she was sure of it. In the meantime, he could use the exercise, he’d been cooped up in that crypt for a week, and before that....

   Nah, don’t think about before that. That was the whole point of tonight.

   She made it to the edge of the cemetery by the ravine, where she’d once thought she’d accidentally killed some poor girl. It was clear there. They’d left most of the gravestones behind, and she stopped and turned, panting a little. Spike wasn’t there.... Oh, of course he was, there was no way he would have just walked away from this.... She scanned the darkness again.

   There he was, atop the small crypt at the edge of the clearing, crouched down, muscles cording as he crept.  He wasn’t wearing his coat. In just a black t-shirt and jeans he looked very small in the night, but deadly for all of that, a lethal panther, keen of eye and sharp of fang. He used what he must have thought of as the element of surprise and pounced down on her. 

   Buffy almost laughed again. They rolled and rolled, wrestling, leaves getting caught in her hair, strength against strength, and they finally hit the edge of the ravine. They were falling, then, arms and legs tangled, still wrestling, holding onto each other, but unable to fight the destiny of gravity as it pulled them down together. They finally landed at the bottom, with him on top, holding down her arms, glaring down on her with his hooded yellow eyes. 

   “At long last!” he growled, and dove in for the bite.

   Buffy caught his head in her hands, and planted a kiss right on his open mouth, regardless of the deadly vampire fangs.

***

 

   The knock on Xander’s door was hesitant, which told him instantly that it wasn’t either of his parents. His mom wouldn’t have bothered knocking, but would have just barged in. His dad would have pounded on the door yelling at him. Willow, if she was visiting, would have knocked shave-and-a-haircut and then come in bustling. He couldn’t think of anyone else who would have visited him at home without calling first.

   Except Cordelia.

   He rolled off his bed in a panic, stabbed off the music he’d turned on to drown out his parents’ voices, and stared hopelessly at his image in the mirror. Well, at least it was the usual disappointment. He batted at his hair without effect, and then opened the door.

   It  _ was _ Cordelia, standing with a cardboard box in one hand, and a wheeled suitcase in the other. “God, let me in. Do your parents ever stop?” she said, glancing behind her down the stairs.

   “No,” Xander said, standing aside. The perpetual argument was louder with the door open. It was actually a good night. They weren’t in full-out-tantrum mode. Right now it was just at pointedly-a-little-too-loud. He shut the door again, muffling their voices down to its usual mild roar. He looked at Cordy. “Moving in?”

   “Huh? Oh, no,” she said, dumping the box on his bed. “I was just... never mind. I was in the neighborhood, I figured I’d stop by.”

   Xander stared. “Cordy? You  _ live _ in the neighborhood.”

   “I know,” she said. She sat down on the edge of his bed beside her box. “Um. Do you mind if I stay here a few hours? I’ll be quiet as a mouse.”

   Xander frowned at her. “Yeah, sure.” He wished he’d known she was coming. His room was a mess. He grabbed a heap of dirty clothes off his desk chair, which he only ever used as a clothes horse. He dumped the clothes in a pile near the overflowing closet — which had nothing hung up in it, but the floor was hip deep with junk — and then sat at the desk. It felt odd. He never used the desk. When he bothered to do his homework he usually did it sprawled on his bed. His unmade bed. Which Cordy was sitting on....

   What was she doing here? Cordy almost never went out at night. Even with the Master dead and the demon district disbanded, there was still a lot of demon activity in Sunnydale. Curfew was still technically in place, it wasn’t exactly _ safe _ out there. What could have induced Cordy to leave her father’s big expensive house on the hill, to go see him in this rat trap?

   The silence let the argument downstairs seep through the floor. Not for the first time, Xander wished he could temporarily murder his parents. It was embarrassing enough when they pulled this crap with just Willow visiting. He wondered what had happened when Cordy had interrupted their argument by knocking on the front door. He hoped he’d never find out, but he was pretty sure he’d have to listen to his mother’s litany on his father’s ill behavior before their guests when he came down for breakfast the next morning. He wished they’d leave him out of their arguments. They never did.

   “How’s it going?” he asked finally.

   “Oh, fine. Just figured I’d check in with the whole... Scooby gang thing.” She waved her hands with false brightness. “Isn’t Buffy doing her cookie mission thing tonight?”

   “Yeah, Willow and Tara finally perfected it. But there’s no way to test it, of course, except to just use it, so... I guess we’ll hear in the morning how it went.”

   “Good, good.”

   “How’s your mission going?”

   “Oh... fine,” Cordy said. “Winter term started, taken two classes already. Walsh is a cast iron bitch, with stupid ugly shoes.”

   “So you and Riley are still...?”

   “Oh, yeah. I already made sure Walsh saw us ma — uh, kissing.”

   He hoped to god she had just been about to say making out, not making love, but... well, he supposed it didn’t matter.

   No. No, it didn’t matter.

   “She hasn’t said a thing to him, just like Buffy said she wouldn’t, so in a week or so we can let the Dean know, and then that’ll get a scandal around her.”

   “Kind of sketchy,” Xander said. He really wasn’t sure this plan would work. Get Riley and Walsh discredited, sure. But the rest of it? Well, he supposed Buffy knew the Initiative better than he did. And if getting Walsh out of the picture would mostly fix it, he figured it might work. “But, you know. Good,” he added.

   “Yeah.”

   The silence settled back around them. In the middle of it, his father called his mother a fat bitch loud enough that it was clear even through the floor. He winced.

   “Were you playing music?” Cordy asked. “I have this new CD from this local band, called Dingoes Ate My Baby?” She dug it out of her cardboard box and dove for his CD player. A minute later something rough and melodious came pouring out of his speakers, blissfully blocking out a lot of his parents’ argument. Cordy seemed embarrassed, though. “They were giving them out free last weekend,” she said. “They’re not very good. Their lead guitarist is totally lame.”

   Xander shrugged. “I kinda like it.”

   “Well, you would,” Cordy said snidely.

   Xander looked down. Right. Okay. Whatever. He turned away and started digging through one of his old boxes of comic books. God dammit, where was the X-Men from last month?

   “I’m sorry,” she said suddenly.

   He looked up.

   “I am, I get into this habit, and I keep saying things, mean things, because they’re easy for me to say,” she said awkwardly. “I think... I think it’s like your parents, you know? They just keep fighting with each other, because they don’t know what else to do. Like... I mean... it’s kind of personal, you know? All the fighting? I mean, is there anyone else they fight with like that?”

   Xander frowned. “No.”

   “Exactly. So, it belongs to them. And maybe it’s not very good, but... it’s something they share with each other.”

   Something broke downstairs. The crash sounded even through the music. His father had probably thrown another beer bottle at the wall. “And with everyone around them,” Xander said.

   “Yeah,” Cordy said. “I didn’t say it was good. Just... I can sort of see how they got that way.”

   “Yeah,” Xander said. “Me too.”

   “Because they’re honest with each other, right?” she pressed. “I mean, they’re angry, but they tell the truth about it.”

   “Won’t shut up about it,” Xander muttered.

   “But that’s the thing,” she said. “No matter how much they fight, they know that it’s safe. That it’s... not going to fall apart.”

   “Wish it would.”

   Cordy shook her head. “It’s better to be honest,” she said, looking down at her cardboard box. “Even if it causes a fight. I hate when people can’t be honest.”

   Okay, this was weird. Whatever was going on with Cordy, it was very real and very personal. The song switched, to something a little softer. Xander came up, ready to try and say something, and realized Cordelia had tears in her eyes. “Hey,” he said. “You can be honest with Riley one day. If it’s important.”

   “Huh? Oh.” She shrugged. “Yeah.”

   Okay, it wasn’t about Riley.

   “You wanna dance?” he asked. He wasn’t at all sure what possessed him, except he hadn’t known what else to say.

   Cordy looked up. He thought she was going to call him lame again, or get pissed off. “Yeah, okay.” She stepped toward him.

   This wasn’t the first time they’d danced in his bedroom. Cordy’s parents hadn’t thought much of Xander, so they hadn’t really hung out at her house much, and music had to go sort of perpetually when both Xander’s parents were home, so.... He moved his hand into Cordelia’s and they moved slowly to the music. Falling back into pattern. Xander had planned on something friendly, setting her into a spin or something, maybe just trying to get her to laugh, but she was subdued, and while the Dingoes music could have gone either way, they ended up stepping closer, softly, until the dance was more like a gentle hug, and, damn... he’d missed the way she felt against him. His cheek caressed her temple, and then his jaw caressed her cheek, and then their lips caressed each other, and then the gentle nuzzles had turned back into soft kisses, and.... Yeah.

   It wasn’t like before. Before there had been passion and anger, resentment in their trysts, even when they were being sensual. This wasn’t passionate. It didn’t even seem romantic. It was right, though, and very peaceful, really not very sexual, but intimate. She tasted like she’d been crying. He pulled away and looked down at her. Her eyes were puffy and red, and her nose was a little swollen, though freshly applied make-up had tried to conceal it for her. She’d been crying before she came to his house. Crying hard.

   Which meant he was probably taking advantage.

   “That doesn’t have to mean anything, if you don’t want,” he said gently.

   Cordy faded against him, pulling him into a warm hug, and he held her steadily for a long, long moment. “Am I safe with you?” she whispered against his neck.

   “I like to think so.”

   She made a small noise of despair, and held him closer.

   “Okay, here, come on,” he said. He set her down gently on the edge of the bed and sat beside her. “What’s the matter?”

   She just shook her head and looked at her knees.

   “What’s with the boxes?” he asked.

   Cordy took a deep breath. “They’re what I could save out of my room before my dad gutted it.”

   Xander was surprised. “Why?”

   “So he could sell everything second hand,” she said coldly.

   “You can’t have run up his credit card that much,” Xander said, trying to make a joke.

   To his horror, Cordy burst back into tears and fell across his bed, shoving her face into his pillow. “Oh, hey, god, I’m sorry,” Xander said, bending over beside her. “I didn’t mean it... you know, funny Xander, never knows when to stop joking.”

   She sobbed, but there was a laugh in it. “No, it’s good. I wish I had. I could stand it, then,” she said. “If it was all my fault then I could stand the humiliation of my father rooting through my closet, demanding if that dress is a Gianni Versace, or is it from after his sister took over the company, or whether those shoes are really Vuitton or if they’re knock offs, or whether or not there’s a resale market for an already opened bottle of Jean Patou's Joy.”

   “What’s that?”

   “It’s a perfume,” Cordelia said. “Over five hundred dollars an ounce.”

   Sometimes Cordelia’s idea of what was normal surprised him.

   “I think you smell better without perfume,” he said softly. This was true. He nuzzled her shoulder, friendly-like. “What’s going on?”

   Cordy jammed the pillow more tightly under her head so she could look up at him a bit. “Daddy’s been cheating on his taxes for the last twelve years,” she said. “He just got caught out at it. He’s been lying. My whole life has been a lie. He’s been fired. Mom’s leaving him. The house is foreclosed on. He just took my car. Now he’s rooting through all my things planning to sell... well, everything, to get some money together.”

   “Wow,” Xander said. “That’s... that’s... wow.”

    “Yeah. Wow. You know all this time, I thought I was richer than you? We’re not! We never were! It was lies and cheating and outright theft! I can’t go to any of the colleges I got accepted into. I can’t stay home, because we’re about to not have one. Mom says she’s going to go live in Italy, at some... commune or something for indigent wombats, and Daddy’s gone just... crazy. He might end up in jail!” She sniffed. “I grabbed what I could while he was screaming at me, and then I had to get out of the house. He tried to drag me back in by the suitcase. Just after the suitcase, by the way, not me. He didn’t give a damn about  _ me _ .”

   “There’s vampires out there,” Xander said.

   “He didn’t care. He ripped the car keys out of my hand as I was about to get into it, I... I was counting on that car,” she said. “It was blessed, and then I was out there in the dark, and... I mean, he took the cell phone. And I....”

   “Didn’t know where else to go,” Xander said. “That’s okay. You can stay here tonight.”

   “Really?”

   “Yeah, I’ll sleep on the couch,” Xander said. Another bottle broke downstairs and the argument revved up another notch. “Or on the floor,” he added.

   “Actually, would you... stay here?” she asked, pulling his arm closer under her chin. “Just... could you maybe hold me for a bit?”

   “Yeah,” he said softly. He curled up against her on his side, leaning on his elbow, letting her hold his arm. He idly touched her hair. It smelled of sweat and expensive shampoo....

   “Do you want to call Riley?” Xander asked after a bit.

   “I don’t want him to know about this,” she said.

   Didn’t want to risk losing him. “Right,” he said. “Just, you know... he might be willing to help.”

   “He’s not real, Xander,” Cordy said. “He doesn’t know a thing about me. Undercover work aside.... he hasn’t even really asked.”

   “I’m sorry.”

   “He lies to me, I lie to him. He’s a secret demon-fighting commando, and I’m an undercover Scooby-gang slayer spy. Neither of us are real to each other. So it doesn’t matter.”

   “I’m still sorry.” 

   She shrugged. 

   “You know I  _ am _ sorry,” he said then quietly. “For all of it.”

   “Me, too,” she said.

   A robust bang shook the house as one of his parents — probably his dad — stormed off to bed and slammed the bedroom door. His mother would cry in the kitchen for an hour, clean up the mess, maybe do some dishes. He didn’t dare leave his room. If he did, he’d be subjected to a two hour lecture on his father’s failings and how he should be careful to never emulate him. Sometimes he was subjected to that lecture, anyway, as his mom just came up and rousted him out of his bedroom, but he didn’t think that too likely tonight, since his mom knew Cordy was here. In a way, Cordelia was protecting him right now as much as his house was protecting her.

   At least the fight was stopped. For now. Some time after midnight his mom would reluctantly trudge upstairs, go into the bedroom, and try to sleep. Roughly one third of the time the fight would just start again in the dark. He hoped it was one of the nights when his dad had drunk too much and would sleep heavy.

   The CD skidded to the end, leaving them in silence.

   “I miss you,” he whispered.

   “I miss you, too.”

   Xander hadn’t thought he’d ever get a chance for this. He was pretty sure she wouldn’t go for it, anyway. But... she was right here. And soft, and open, and warm, and being real for once. “I’d like to try again,” he said.

   Cordy closed her eyes.

   “It’s okay, you can say no, and it won’t change anything, and you can stay here tonight, and we’ll stay friends,” he said. “I just... I would like to try again.”

   Cordy squeezed his arm closer to her. “I can’t break up with Riley yet.”

   “I know that,” Xander said. “That’s... actually something I was thinking about. Given my... or, you know, his little problem. That other Xander, that Buffy knows.”

   “What do you mean?”

   “Well. I mean I think I may have found a way around it. If you’re okay with it. What happens is, we just do what we’re going to do. I thought, if we wanted to date, we’d date. If we wanted to kiss, we’d do that. But if we wanted to date other people, Riley or... anyone else. We’d do that too, if we wanted. And it wouldn’t have to mean... being locked in a little box you can’t get out of.”

   Cordy shifted a little in the bed and gazed up at him. “What if we do want to date someone else?”

   “Then we’d just be honest about it,” Xander said. “Like... with Riley. Only not with Riley, because of the undercover thing, but say, he asked you on a date. And you’d be like, okay, but I sometimes go on dates with my friend Xander too, that’s okay, right? And it would be okay. Because we’re honest about it.”

   “And the same if you wanted to date some… bat demon?”

   “I’d tell you I had a date with bat demon girl before we go out, yes,” Xander said with a laugh. “And I’d tell bat demon girl about you and me.”

   “What if we get jealous?”

   “I’m sure we will.”

   “Well?”

   Xander felt a little helpless. “I figured we’d come up and say, ‘I’m feeling jealous, help me out here.’ I mean, people get jealous ‘cause they’re afraid they’re gonna lose something, or if they’re not getting enough of what they need. It’s not the whole….  I mean, you were jealous of Willow  _ before _ the damn kiss, right? Right?”

   Cordy looked down. 

   “So it wasn’t the kissing that did it, that was just the last straw. I was jealous of Tara before I knew they were dating. I thought she’d taken on the role of Willow’s best friend. The jealousy isn’t cut and dried, it’s fluid, and it’s about who you are to each other, and what you need from each other. I figured we’d keep feeling it out.”

   “But what if things get serious?” Cordy asked.

   “You mean with us, or with someone else?”

   “With someone else,” she said. She sat up and looked at him. “I mean, okay, you and I are dating, but what if I really fall in love with some other guy I’m dating?”

   Xander shrugged. “Then you’d tell me you were falling in love, and we’d figure it out from there. And maybe we’d have to be just friends from then on. But, like... you know, we’re really young, Cordy. I’m only eighteen, you’re nineteen—”

   “I turned twenty,” Cordy said.

   Xander smiled. “Yeah, but you don’t like to admit that,” he said.

   Cordy stared at him for a moment, then jumped forward and hugged him. “I love you,” she whispered desperately.

   Oh, yeah. He felt as if a thorn or something had just dislodged from his heart. “I love you, too.”

   She pulled away. “I missed your birthday.”

   “So did everyone else. I didn’t make a big deal about it this year.”

   “That’s... I’m sorry.”

   Xander shrugged. “Not important.”

   “No, it is.”

   He shook his head. “Not compared to this it isn’t,” he said. “Listen, are you willing to try again? Just dating, not going steady, not writing out prenuptial agreements, not....”

   “Putting things in boxes,” Cordy said.

   “Yeah.”

   She looked thoughtfully at him. “I guess I could do that,” she said. “Just... telling the truth about everything?”

   “Yeah.”

   “Including other people we’re seeing?”

   “Well, yeah. We’d have to.”

   She stared at him. “Does that mean you want to hear about Riley?”

   Xander tried to find the best way to put this. “Yes, but not until after we figure this out. Because what you have or don’t have, or are or aren’t doing with anyone else doesn’t really matter. Not between us, you know? That’s... kind of the point.”

   “But... you want there to be an us to be between.”

   He swallowed. “I really do.”

   Cordy stared at him for a long long time. “Even though I can be a cast iron bitch?”

   He grinned. “I actually like that about you, Cordy. Just not when it hurts people who don’t deserve it.”

   “And I don’t like people lying to me.”

   “I think I was just promising not to.”

   “I don’t really think you’re lame,” she said suddenly.

   Xander laughed. “I am, though.”

   Cordy swallowed. “Can I keep my stuff here until I’m sure my dad’s not gonna hock it?”

   “That was a given whether you wanted to date me or not.”

   Cordy didn’t say anything for a long moment.

   “Do you?”

   She frowned, and then took hold of his shoulder, lying him beside her on the bed. She snuggled her body against his as she gazed into his eyes. “I’m sorry I missed your birthday. I had a date all planned for us.”

   “Maybe we can do it later?”

   Cordy smiled and gently touched his face. “Yeah,” she said softly, and moved forward to kiss him. “I’d like that.”

 


	39. Chapter 39

 

   Spike stared up at the slayer in dazed awe. What would become of him now? What had he done? How had this happened? The most capable part of his psyche was crying out,  _ Please, god, no!!! _ but the rest of him couldn’t even get that far.

   She had kissed him, and for ten stunned seconds he’d looked down upon her as if he’d been struck by lightning. A bolt of brightness and electricity had wiped his mind and shocked his body and left him utterly helpless. Then all logic faded, and he dared to kiss her again. He dragged himself away, gazing down at her in terror, and they were kissing again, then again. She gripped him, kissed him, rolled him over, held him down, let him do the same, over and over again, and it was beyond him to understand it.  _ You had a dream like this, _ he felt, but dreams were only that. This was impossible. It didn’t make sense. And it was so much bigger than he was.

   It felt like love, only more than that. Worshipful devotion and lust and desperation and terror and despair and adoration and awe and humility. It was being hit by a freight train. It was being drowned beneath the ocean. It was being ripped asunder. He was not himself within this emotion, but he didn’t know who he was. He felt he could be more and better and stronger than ever, and felt as if he’d been devoured by her as well, as if she’d eaten him alive.

   And all the terror and pleasure and awe happened all at once, as his body remembered hers — how could it remember a dream? — and she arched over him and they overpowered each other beneath the winter moon.

   Now he lay spent and bewildered with the slayer still atop him, and he stared. She had brown leaves caught in her shiny hair. Her clothes were mussed and grass stained now, and she didn’t seem to care. To him she seemed to radiate her own light, as if she were that candle he was trying to light earlier, a gentle glow of power and glory and radiance.

   And as he lay speechless and in awe, she whispered down to him before dripping a final kiss into his mouth. “I love you.”

   He was finished. If there was any part of him fighting this —  _ this, _ whatever it was — she had just slain it. He sagged against the earth as if he’d just been killed, and she smiled down at him then pulled away, rearranging her clothes to something that wouldn’t get her arrested for public indecency.

   Part of Spike wanted to just lie there in shock until sunrise, but he also didn’t want to let her out of his sight. He made himself sit up, staring at her. God, he was terrified. He almost felt like crying, he was so scared.

   She was so beautiful....

   “You okay?” she asked him.

   Was he...? “No,” he said honestly. He couldn’t think straight, and he didn’t know who he was or even what he was anymore.

   Buffy lifted him to his feet and set about zipping him up and brushing him off, like a fretful nurse. “You will be,” she said.

   He couldn’t stop touching her. As she rearranged his shirt and buckled his belt for him he found himself kissing her hair, touching her shoulders, pressing himself closer up against her, breathing in her scent.

   She seemed to find it funny. “Come on,” she said, gently touching his cheek. “Let’s go get a drink.”

   “A drink?” he asked, completely unable to fathom the concept. It sounded so utterly mundane when the world had just cracked open and dropped him wholly and completely into the divine.

   Also... her hand had shook. Ever so slightly against his face, he’d felt it. Was she all right? It was a daft notion, since he’d been ready to kill her not an hour before — was it only an hour? — but he was suddenly worried about her.

   “Yeah,” she said. She took hold of his arm and led him down the edge of the ravine, to the easy path up. “Willy’s has started selling flowering onions,” she said. “You want?”

   It all sounded so mundane, again. But he did want. He just didn’t know what he wanted.

   They walked together, the slayer and her escort, hadn’t they done this? Hadn’t he walked her home once when he’d wanted to rid the world of Angelus, wasn’t there a truce once? His mind was foggy, what was a dream and what was reality wasn’t very clear in his head, but he remembered that much. His memory was clear up until just after he had been caught by the Initiative, and then... then things started to get hazy. He knew he didn’t have a chip in his head anymore... but how that had happened, he couldn’t really... was that part of the dream...?

   “Don’t think about it,” Buffy said suddenly, and his mind snapped back to her. Oh, yeah, much better thing to think about, the slayer beside him. The glorious, gorgeous, glowing slayer pacing beside him with her arm in his, and... he put his arm around her instead, even closer, because that seemed right, and then they weren’t close enough suddenly, and he had her backed up against a tree, and they were kissing again, and he was panting, pushing up against her as if trying to climb inside and disappear into  _ her. _

   She let it happen for a while, then laughed. “Come on,” she whispered. “I want to get some food in you.”

   He did feel hungry. But this miracle was right here...!

   “I’ll be here later,” she promised. “We have all night.”

   It seemed too short.

   “Come on,” she said, ducking under his arm. “I’ll race you.”

   And they were running together, then. Not like the hunt before, this was something else, something powerful. Side by side with her, running as her equal, faster and faster, the wind caressing them, the earth being moved aside beneath their feet. It felt like they were the pivot point of the whole world, and they rolled it like a log beneath them. It probably wasn’t true, but it was a glorious feeling.

   They got to Willy’s, and Buffy stopped outside to catch her breath. Spike did too — it wasn’t breath he needed, not like she did, but exertion still had the same reaction whether you needed to shunt oxygen around your body or not. They gasped and panted and she smiled at him, and then she kissed him again, pressing him up against the wall of the pub, her mouth like sweet summer wine, her body a burning fire of heat and life that shocked through him. Dear god, he felt  _ alive! _

   And then she pulled away again, and led him by the hand inside the pub. “Two beers, and make it snappy,” she barked as everyone in the pub looked at her warily. “Got a preference?”

   He barely had a preference between flesh and dust at this point. “Nah.”

   “Whatever’s on draft. And a flowering onion.” She pulled Spike over to the table by the juke box. “The fry cook from the Bronze got a job here, after the Bronze closed,” she said. “Fries, flowering onions, mozzarella sticks.”

   “That’s bloody marvelous,” Spike said, barely sure of what he was saying. He reached out and examined Buffy’s hand on the table. It was warm and strong and so small. He was in love with her hand. He was in love with her fingers. He had fallen desperately in love with her wrist. He was fondling her palm in hopeless adoration when the flowering onion came, and the tupac demon who brought it set it in the center of the table. Buffy took her hand back — he sighed — and grabbed at a leaf of onion.

   “Buffy, what the hell’s going on?” he finally asked.

   Buffy nearly choked. “What do you mean?”

   “I’m right confused.”

   “I know,” she said gently. “It’s that kind of night.”

   “Feels like I’m in a dream,” he confessed. “I had a dream like this, I did. But it doesn’t make sense I...  _ this _ doesn’t make any sense.” He stared at her helplessly. “Is this real?”

   “It doesn’t matter,” she said.

   “No, it matters, Buffy, I’m lost, I....”

   Buffy took the piece of flowering onion in her hand and stuffed it in his hanging mouth. He bit down. Oh, right. He liked these things. He chewed and swallowed, shifting a minimum of his attention to the onion before him.

   “Tonight we’re on a date,” Buffy said. “Everything else we can sort out in the morning, okay? Just enjoy now while you can.”

   “Is this a problem?” he asked after he swallowed. “Is something wrong? What can I—”

   “Spike?” she asked. “Please. I just want to enjoy tonight.” She swallowed. “I had a really bad couple of weeks.”

   Sympathy grabbed at him like someone had reached through his chest. What the hell...? He wasn’t supposed to care about anyone, why...? Dammit, didn’t matter. “You okay?” he asked, concerned. What was with that, anyway? Concern _ hurt _ . He didn’t like it much.

   “No,” she said. “I got stood up a few weeks ago. I mean, I knew the guy had his reasons, but it still hurt, you know?”

   “Anyone who would stand you up deserves to be horsewhipped.”

   “Yeah, I think he feels the same way. Thing is, I blame myself.”

   “Stop that.” He reached out and grabbed her hand again. “There’s no way you could have done anything wrong, pet. I mean you’re...” he didn’t really know how to call her an angel or a goddess without making it sound lame. “You’re a white hat, right? You’re the hero. You always do the right thing.”

   “I always try to,” she said. “But I’m not perfect. I make mistakes.”

   “Oh, bollocks, so does everyone, that doesn’t mean you’re not....” He looked down. He knew no one was perfect. If she was perfect, he’d probably hate her, which meant she  _ was _ perfect. “You’re perfect to me,” he said shyly, looking down at the table.

   She smiled and gripped his hand. “Thanks,” she said softly. “But I screwed up. I put too much on people. I put way too much on him, ‘cause I thought he could take it. See, I knew it had gone too far at one point, but I let it go on.”

   “What happened?” he asked.

   “He was tortured. Hurt,” Buffy said. Her voice was full of pain that… damn. It hurt to hear it, even. “I failed him. I shouldn’t have let that happen. And I even let it go on after that, and I should have come for him, and I didn’t.”

   “Hey, now, could you even have done that?” he asked. This was sounding like another dream he’d had, or a book he’d read or something. “Did you even know?”

   “I knew enough. The thing is, I didn’t hear about it until after. I thought he’d be able to get away if anything that bad was going to happen. It... it didn’t occur to me that he was so noble he’d just stay there and take it. And it should have. Because dammit, I already knew he’d let himself be tortured for me. I knew he was that kind of guy, and I knew it mattered to him, but I let him go back anyway. I should have stopped him. I should have pulled him, I should have protected him, dammit!” She looked down. “I should have gotten him out before it happened.”

   “If he chose to go back, that’s on him, pet. You couldn’t have known what was going down.”

   “I could have guessed,” she said. “And I should have gotten him out after, but I didn’t. I let him stay there, and I think they kept hurting him. I mean, they’d said they’d gotten him a nurse and he wasn’t being tortured anymore, but... there’s more than one kind of torture, you know? And I think that nurse did things to him, too. Things that shouldn’t have happened.”

   “Meh,” Spike said, leaning back a bit in his chair. “You make your choices and you live with them.”

   “That’s the thing,” Buffy said. “I don’t think he was given any choice.”

   “Sure he was,” Spike said. “He could have walked out. Throw it all up into the air and said hang it all.”

   “Could you do that?” she asked.

   Spike cocked his head.

   “Just walk away? Just let things happen, even terrible things? Give up on stuff that matters to you? The people you love?”

   If she hadn’t said that last he would have said sure. Now... staring at her....

   He looked down instead.

   “So I feel bad,” she said. “I feel really bad. If I could have done the hard work myself, I would have. But I put it on him... and I should have found another way.”

   “Come on,” he said. “A general always makes choices, there’s always casualties in war.”

   “I don’t want there to be a war,” she said. “And I don’t want him to be a casualty. I want it to be over.” She stared at him, hard. “I want us to leave that behind.”

   Spike felt very awkward suddenly. He felt confused, and hurt, maybe jealous? Lost. He felt lost.

   “So,” Buffy said then, bright smiles back on her face. “I figured you and I could enjoy this evening. Forget all that.”

   “Why’d you kiss me?” he asked suddenly. It wasn’t just a kiss, but that was how it had started.

   “Oh... I fell in love with you, I mentioned that, didn’t I?”

   “You might have,” he said. “I just don’t get it.” He reached out and picked up her hand again. “We’re completely different.”

   “Slayer and vampire,” Buffy said. “But we’re not that different, really. We’re both fighters. We’re both killers. We each have our own demons.” She smiled. “Besides, I know you. I know your heart, and your passion, and your fury. I’ve seen the best and the worst of you. You fill the holes in my life, and you’ve lent me your strength when I needed it. I took advantage of that. I always do, and it’s not right. But I do love you. So very, very much.”

   He wanted to feel flattered, or warm, or touched, but something was very, very wrong. He couldn’t put his finger on what it was for a minute. Then he found it. And he didn’t like it.

   He looked up. “I’m evil.”

   Her green eyes fixed on him. “You can do evil things, and not be evil.”

   “There’s no excuse. Wrong is wrong.”

   “And right can be wrong, too,” she said. “A mob boss gives money to charity. By all objectives, that’s a good thing to do. He’s still a bad man. By that same argument, a good man can do something horrible. Like a hero can make a mistake, and use someone. And break them. Like I did,” she said. “I did bad things. Does that make me evil?’

   He wanted to insist that no, she was still good, and it couldn’t have been  _ that _ bad a thing she’d done, right, because she was the heroine, yeah? But she knew better than he did. And he still felt like he was evil, one way or another.

   “Like a stain on the cloth, though, innit?” Spike asked. “It’ll never be clear again.”

   “It might not be white again,” Buffy said. “But if you know what you’re doing with those stains, you can make it watered silk. And it’s mottled and it’s complicated and it’s beautiful. Pattern and complexity. That makes it worth more.”

   Spike looked down again. “But if doing good things doesn’t make you good, and doing evil things doesn’t make you evil, then where’s the line?”

   “There is no line,” Buffy said. “That’s the point. There’s just people. Trying as hard as they can.”

   The jukebox behind them faded out, leaving the bar in silence for a minute. Someone across the bar glanced up as if interested in picking the next song, and Buffy dropped a coin on the table for Spike. “Pick something.”

   Spike took it up and put one foot up on the chair to check the jukebox menu. Limited selection... mostly older stuff, lots of long-lived demons at Willy’s.... Oh, hell yeah! Spike made his selection and started bobbing his head as the Ramones started to blare. “ _ Yeah, yeah she's the one! When I see her on the street, you know she makes my life complete, and you know I told you so. She's the one, she's the one!” _

   Buffy stood up and twirled to him, dancing with abandon in the corner of Willy’s. They were the only ones dancing. They looked like fools. It didn’t matter. Her body undulated and her face shone and her hair bounced — still holding leaves and twigs in it from their tryst.

   Spike had never felt more happy.

   They finished the onion, and drank a couple more beers, and talked about soap operas, and then two vampires came in with a half-drained victim.

   Spike and Buffy looked at each other as they propped the girl against the counter. “Two Bloody Marys, barman!”    

   It was instinctive. Spike didn’t even think about it, he stood up when Buffy did. “Um, hey, guys,” Willy said to the vampires at the bar. “You guys, uh... might want to start keeping that kind of thing on the down low what with the new mood in town, I— Please! Not at the bar! Not at the bar!”

   Spike and Buffy had grabbed the vamps by their respective scruffs.

   “Please, please, just do that outside!” Willy begged. “That’s all I’m asking, guys!”

   Spike and Buffy looked at each other. Spike raised an eyebrow, and Buffy shrugged. They dragged their prey toward the door. “Willy?” Buffy snapped as she left. “If she’s any worse off when I come back in,  _ you _ will be the one in need of the hospital, you got that?”

   “Absolutely, Slayer,” Willy said. He caught the girl, who appeared to be in shock, and lay her half over the bar so he could keep an eye on her. “Totally caught that, wouldn’t dream of letting anyone lay a hand on—”

   Spike didn’t hear any more than that, because he’d dragged his vampire outside. Huh. Didn’t have his coat on him. “Bugger,” he said as he lifted the vampire up like a naughty kitten. “Seems I’m fresh out of stakes, goldilocks. You got any?”

   “No. Guess we’ll have to be inventive,” Buffy said.

   “I should have known you’d be staking out Willy’s!” the vampire in his arms said. “This whole thing’s all your fault! Traitor! Turncoat!  _ Soulbound! _ ”

   Spike dropped the vampire on the ground and did a bit of a tap-dance on his spine, snapping it in a couple places. “Here, give me the other one, you find us some wood, would you, pet?”

   “On it,” Buffy said, tossing Spike the vampire.

   “The Master’s disciples will track you down, soulbound!” the other fledge howled. “Traitor to your people! Kill your own kind!”

   “I’ll take that as an order,” Spike said as Buffy came back from behind the bar.

   “Catch!” she called, tossing Spike a broken lath from a discarded pallet.

   Spike shoved the lath up the vampire’s chest and felt the gentle rain of dust as he exploded above him. He turned and casually dusted the one by his feet as Buffy looked on, grinning.

   Spike felt strange. That had all been natural and instinctive, but it shouldn’t have been. And what had that bastard called him? Soulbound?

   “We may have to call our date early,” Buffy said. “I don’t trust Willy to get her to the hospital, do you?”

   “Huh?” Spike asked. He was feeling strange and dreamlike again, and he couldn’t put his finger on what was real and what wasn’t. “Oh, uh... no. No, I guess not.”

   Buffy looked at Willy’s scant parking lot. “I think the cops are still on curfew too, these days. I hate to steal anything....”

   “That van smells like blood,” Spike said, pointing at it. “Wasn’t here when we showed. My bet, it was theirs.”

   “Sounds perfect,” Buffy said. 

   She went back in to collect the victim, and by the time she came back out Spike had smashed the window on the van and was in the process of hot-wiring the engine. “It’ll be okay,” she was saying to the girl, who was moaning gently. “We’ll get you to a safe space.”

   “She all right?” Spike heard himself asking.

   “Yeah, but some blood’s probably in order, or at least IV fluids. Let’s get her to the hospital.”

   Spike got the engine going and backed the van out of the lot. He remembered where the hospital was, even though things felt unreal. The girl’s blood was sweet and had trickled down her throat, staining her shirt. He knew he wasn’t chipped up. He knew he should want to go for that sweet smelling wound....

   Why didn’t he? Why was it making him feel nauseated? And why was he hitting the accelerator to make sure he got to the hospital as fast as bloody possible? But he didn’t, and he did, and he was, and Buffy grunted as he swerved too fast around a curve to take a shortcut.

   “What the hell did they call me?” Spike asked.

   “Huh?”

   “Those pissant fledges. They were calling me soulbound.”

   Buffy shrugged. “Can’t imagine.” She glanced over at him and smiled. “Don’t worry about it, Spike. Let’s get her somewhere safe, and we can finish our date.”

   Sounded good to him. Both of those things.

   Buffy brought the girl into the hospital, because the place looked like a fortress, and there was no way Spike was getting in there. There was uniformed security at the doors, armed with crosses and crossbows, and they tested Buffy and the victim as she came to the threshold of the emergency room with holy water on her hand. Buffy flatly refused to answer a bunch of questions about the girl and left quickly, leaving the hospital to deal with it. She hopped back into the van, rolling her eyes about it. 

   “Like I knew anything about her!” she said, exasperated. “She’s not the first vic I’ve dragged in here in the middle of the night, they should know me by now.”

   “Where to?”

   She looked over at him. “Back home?”

   “Sounds good,” he said. He paused. “Where’s home, when it’s at home?” he asked. He genuinely wasn’t sure.

   She smiled and shifted over in the seat to lean her head against his shoulder. “How about you take us back to the crypt?”

   He gazed down at her as he drove.  _ What has become of me? _ he mused.  _ What the bloody hell has she done to me? _

   He supposed it didn’t matter. He felt good.

   Buffy led him back through the cemetery and into the crypt, which was even darker and dimmer than it had been, since a lot of his crappy, half-spent candles had gone full-spent while he was out. Buffy closed the door anyway, locking the world away. The mad desperation of love he’d been feeling before was softer now. It was still there, oh, god, was it still there, but somehow it felt more real now. As if there was something warm and dangerous and understood at the core of it... and he felt an undercurrent of fear as he realized something was changing. If something was changing the dream could be half real, and what was real and what was the dream, and where did that leave him if that was the case...?

   “Where’s Dawn?” he asked. Why the hell was he suddenly worried about the niblet? But worried about her he was. “Is she... Joyce....”

   “We can go see Joyce tomorrow, if you’d like,” Buffy said. She looked down at her watch. “It’s been a few hours since you... started this date. How are you feeling?”

   “Bit confused,” he confessed.

   She smiled gently. “Sounds right. Come on.”

   “What’s happening now?”

   Buffy led him over to his mattress in the corner, and flipped up the edge of the unzipped sleeping bag so she could sit on the sheet. Spike found himself falling to his knees before her, and that felt so right. “What should have happened a long time ago,” Buffy said. She lifted his shirt over his head, and then took his hand and placed it on her blouse, inviting him to do the same.

   Spike didn’t. Or didn’t immediately, anyway. He used the opportunity to move gently closer to her, and untangle the last of the leaves from her hair. He kissed its blonde waves in the candlelight, and caressed her cheek with his lips, and touched her face, slowly, in awe and wonder that she would ever, ever allow him to do this. Her eyelashes were long and delicate. Her nose had a curious quirk that was damn cute. Her perfect rose lips parted under his thumb, her skin was smooth and milky, and he wanted to part it with his fangs and drain out the blood and....

   He stopped, pulling his hand back. She opened her eyes. “What’s wrong?”

   “This isn’t a dream, is it,” he said. “Or... this _ is _ a dream. This is a dream, and the dream is real, and....”

   “Spike,” Buffy said. “Do you love me?”

   What a question. “Beyond words.”

   “Then just love me, for tonight. That’s all that matters, please. Think tomorrow.” She crept over to him and crawled into his lap and wrapped her legs around his hips. “Feel tonight.”

   He so wanted to feel....

   He finally unbuttoned her blouse and let it fall away, her flesh warm and heady as she kissed and caressed him. They stripped completely, naked to each other, and made love in slow motion, perfectly aligned, their bodies fitting together in more than one way, his arms slid perfectly around her shoulders, her legs fitting snugly around his thighs. Unlike their first tryst, which was heated and desperate and wrong, a kind of hunt, this was right. It was slow and beautiful and pure, and Spike listened to her moan, and the sensations overcame him, and he looked down upon her beneath him, surrounding him, the scent overwhelming him, and to his horror his eyes grew wet with tears.

   Buffy kissed at those tears, and whispered to him. “I’m here, darling. I got you, I’ll never let go.” Then, “I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry. Please forgive me.”

   “Don’t go,” he whispered back. “Don’t, it’s not worth it.” He couldn’t understand it. It felt very much as if she had died.... She was right here. It didn’t make sense. It didn’t....

   “You’re catching up,” she whispered.

   “I... I don’t....” He didn’t understand.

   “Do something for me?” She pulled her head to the side and showed him her throat. “Drink from me.”

   He was almost surprised, but also he wasn’t. This was part of his dream... some thing of his dream, anyway. “I don’t want … to hurt....”

   “Just a taste,” she said. “Only a sip. You won’t hurt me.”

   Spike looked down on her throat. The bite he remembered she had from Angel, that scar was pretty much gone in the candlelight, even though he knew it was there. But behind it, there was a collection of tiny scars, flat, clean, looking like pale freckles on her golden skin. If he hadn’t been looking for them, he wouldn’t have known they were there. Multiple bites, over and over again, away from the veins, where it would heal easily, where her hair would cover the bite marks.

   “You’ve been tasted before,” he whispered.

   “When love is shared,” she said, “the blood is sacred. Someone taught me that.” She arched her neck, held him softly, gazed up at him through hooded eyes. “Let me be part of you,” she whispered. “Let me see your other face.” 

   Fangs… did she mean this? The dream again.... It all seemed so familiar. He let his face turn to darkness, and she smiled up at him. “That’s right.”

   He kissed her throat softly through his fangs, and memories assailed him. Half dead victims, a struggling slayer, a terrified little girl. But they weren’t memories. They were all part of the dream... the nightmare. He pulled away, shaking his head. “No, no, I....”

   Buffy sat up with him. “I know,” she said. “I know, it’s confusing. But just a taste will make it better, I swear. Do you trust me?”

   Spike searched her eyes. “Will it take the nightmares away?”

   She caressed his cheek, staring into his demonic face without fear or revulsion. “I already did.”

   She wrapped herself around him, and hugged him tightly, and her throat was right by his mouth... no doubt, she knew that. His body knew this, too. His body knew hers, his heart knew hers, and he knew her blood. He knew it. And yeah, it was his. It was the only human blood he ever....

   Except for the nightmare.

_  She can take it away. _

   He opened his mouth and sank his teeth in, as gently and generously as possible, washing her with the demonic venom or whatever it was that made the pain fade away and the victims swoon, unwilling to let go of their murderers. She moaned against him in ecstasy, gripping him tightly — bloody hell, fair on her way to making a good blood junkie, she was — and he lay her down on the mattress and took in the blood of his beloved.

   About the time his own internal measure told him to stop, he started to feel exhausted. He let up the bite and blinked down at Buffy, who was blinking up at him. She was probably feeling pretty floaty herself right now, but he couldn’t... could barely keep... his head up....

   “Go to sleep,” she said gently.

   He lay on his side, but he fought it. “Don’t want... to....”

   “It’s all right.”

   “No,” he said, fighting the impulse again. “The dream. Don’t want to sleep.”

   “Why not?”

   “Don’t want to wake up,” he said. “If this is the dream... don’t want to sleep. I’ll wake.”

   Buffy caressed his head and snuggled against him, pulling the sleeping bag over them as a blanket. “I promise I’ll be here when you wake,” she said. “And I promise... the nightmare can be over. If you want it to be.” She kissed his eyelids, which had already fallen back to normal. “Believe me, you’d rather sleep through the next few hours. You’re better off not reliving them awake.”

   “Relive...?” He hummed as the sleep began to overtake him.

   “I’m alive,” she whispered. “I love you. And I’m right here with you.” She kissed him gently. “Sleep well, Spike.”

   “Nn,” he said. He had meant it to be  _ I love you _ . He was asleep before he could form the words.

   Buffy watched as his consciousness faded, content to be close to him even in sleep. She checked her bite — slayer healing, as always, had stopped the bleeding fast. She’d had the cookies formulated to put him to sleep at the addition of human blood, both as a safeguard in case she’d miscalculated and took him to a place where he was totally evil and man-eaty, and also for this; the gift of skipping the year she had died and the troubled times that had happened afterward. He tensed now and again in his sleep, dreaming of the pain of those times, but they were only dreams. She held him through them, and dozed herself, curled in the arms of her beloved, waiting to see what the morning would bring.

   She prayed he’d be himself again.

***

 

   Morning came, and Buffy woke from her doze to see Spike staring at her, his blue eyes clear and heavy, but not empty and dead as they had been. He looked perplexed. “Morning,” she said.

   He didn’t say anything for a long moment. Then when he did, it wasn’t what she’d expected.

   “You took me back before the soul.”

   “I did.”

   He gazed at her, his brow furrowed. “Why?”

   Buffy took in a deep breath and tried to explain. “Drusilla said your soul was broken, or wounded, right? I figured if it was hurt, the best thing for it would be a bit of a rest.”

   Spike stared at her. She couldn’t read his expression. 

   “Are you all right?” she asked.

   He shook his head slightly. “No.”

   “Will you be?”

   He didn’t answer at first. “I want to go home with you,” he said softly after a while. “I want to go home with you, back to our world, and I want to leave this terrible place, and everything that happened here…, here.”

   “That sounds like a plan,” Buffy said.

   Spike nodded. “I love you.” 

   “Love you, too.”

   He kissed her forehead, then rolled away from her onto his stomach, pulling her arm with him so she was spooning along his back. He jammed the pillow under his head, nestled in against Buffy’s arm, and fell back asleep.

   He lay asleep for two whole days.

 


	40. Chapter 40

 

   “That’s it, we got them,” Buffy said. There was the headline. UNDERGROUND DEMON HUNTERS REVEALED BENEATH COLLEGE CAMPUS.

   “Is that your Initiative problem, honey?” Joyce asked.

   “Yeah,” Buffy said. She spread the paper on the kitchen counter, and Spike quietly moved the glass of orange juice and the mug of pig blood out of her way. “Here, listen to this.  _ ‘Sources suggest that the leader of this underground facility is none other than Margaret Walsh, who was recently suspended as professor at UC Sunnydale due to her complicity in a sex scandal between an underage student and her own TA, Riley Finn. Finn, who has also been implicated as a member of the underground facility, is reported as feeling discouraged. “My girlfriend and I have done nothing wrong,” he said. “We’re both consenting adults.” He went on to say that he thought it unfair that the college should censure him for dating a student. When asked if he had known it was against school policy, he repeated that Professor Walsh had known of the affair, and hadn’t discouraged it.’ _ ”

   “Then it goes on about the scandal,” Buffy said. That had come out a week ago, and had only been gossipy news around the college campus, even though Buffy privately thought it was pretty rough on Cordelia. Cordy hadn’t seemed to mind the idea. She herself had insisted that Walsh’s videos be given to the Dean. It had been a big scandal at the college level — college professor knows her TA is dating a student is one thing. College professor who is furthermore recording said TA’s and teenage girl’s sexual activity without their knowledge is another.

   “She  _ recorded _ it,” Cordelia had said when Willow had hacked the videos. “She’s a witch, and I want her burned.” She’d glanced over at Willow as she said it. “Figuratively speaking,” she added.

   “Just change one letter of the previous statement,” Willow had said with a grin, “and I’ll agree wholeheartedly.”

   “Yeah, well. I kinda like bitches,” Xander had said, putting his arm around Cordelia’s waist. “And witches. Why don’t we just call her a creep, and go on from there?”

   Buffy had been pretty worried though. “You know, we don’t have to release it,” she said. She looked over at Xander. She hadn’t realized Xander was going to be there when they hacked the security feed in Riley’s bedroom, but Cordy hadn’t said he should leave. Buffy had seen what Xander’s reaction could be when he saw his ex with someone new. Fortunately the video mostly showed sheets and blankets, since Riley wasn’t the most inventive in the bedroom, but it had been pretty clear what was going on.“I’m sorry you had to see that.”

   “It’s okay,” Xander said. “I already knew.”

   Buffy hadn’t, really. She pulled Cordelia aside, concerned. “You really didn’t have to have sex with Riley. I did make that clear, right? All I needed were some kisses.”

   “He was hot, I was pissed off, and I wanted to get laid,” Cordy said. “I know none of those are one-true-love reasons to have sex, but....” She shrugged.

   “The only reason you need to have sex is,  _ I wanted to. _ ”

   “I wanted to,” Cordy said.

   Buffy heaved a sigh, but she wasn’t sure it was of relief. This mission had been skirting the borders of what she herself was comfortable with. Of course, she knew she had a lot of sexual hang ups. She also knew if she could have done the mission herself, she would have. And if she had been doing it, she would probably have had sex with him, herself. It was the much surer course. She’d have hated it, and Spike would  _ really _ have hated it, but she would have done the mission. And Spike probably would have understood, too, that the mission is what matters. Just like Buffy had made herself come to grips with Harmony.

   It helped that Spike was damn traumatized over that himself, and understandably so. He’d finally explained it, and it was about what she’d expected. (Though she hadn’t asked about Drusilla, and didn’t really want to know. He was already in trauma by then, either way.) When it came to Harmony, he  _ could _ have walked away, and probably without getting an innocent girl killed, but only by abandoning the mission completely. Buffy agreed with him — that would have been a disaster. Given the knives to his and other people’s throats it had felt like a rape, and at least the first time, it almost certainly qualified. 

   It was hard. But it was war.

   As far as Riley and Walsh were concerned, it was going to be lots easier to discredit them now that it was an actual sex-scandal more than just a dating-scandal. Cordelia had undoubtedly known that, too.

   It still bothered Buffy that she’d ordered it.

   “It’s not like Riley was my first, Buffy,” Cordelia said, and Buffy did feel a bit of relief at that. “I was just sick of being celibate, and frankly... the man pool in Sunnydale is getting a little thin these days. I was serious. Hot soldier sounded like a fun gig.” She sighed. “Was kind of boring, actually, after the first few times.”

   Buffy chuckled. “Yeah. Riley’s kind of a one-trick-pony of the vanilla persuasion. But... you know....” she looked over at Xander. “If you and Xander really are dating again....”

   “We are.”

   “Well. According to a very vocal vengeance demon I once knew, someone else probably isn’t.”

   Cordy blushed. “Well, we’ll have to see about that one day.”

   “But if it’s making things... I just don’t want it to be the cause of a problem between you and Xander.”

   “I did what I wanted, Buffy. He knows that. We both get to do what we want, and tell the truth about it. I just... I don’t like being lied to.”

   Buffy nodded. “I get that. We still don’t have to release the video to the Dean.”

   “If it’ll take Walsh down faster, yes, we do,” Cordy said. “I want the mission to succeed, and I want her taken down. That’s  _ illegal. _ ”

   It was. It fell under criminal eavesdropping, and depending on the judge was possibly punishable by actual jail time. So they’d sent the video to the Dean, with the provenance of it being Walsh’s feed. He’d contacted the police. Riley had been removed from UC Sunnydale TA staff, and made to leave the campus. Walsh had been fired, and then indicted, and while she hadn’t been arrested for the recordings, the police had assured them a court case was pending. She was probably going to get off — she already had a lawyer, likely paid for by the government — but her name was properly smeared.

   All that would have been easily brushed off, of course, except for stage three of the plan, which was then to expose the Initiative.

   Buffy had done that two days ago. She and Spike had snuck in using Spike’s knowledge of the back entrances. They hadn’t gotten far, but had gotten enough photographs to document the Initiative complex’s existence. With that, and Buffy’s extensive reporting on the Initiative’s use of drug enhancements for their soldiers, rumors of their demon experimentation, and naming of several of their supposed covert operators, the newspapers had had a field day. There was a public outcry, parents and students were demanding answers, and withdrawing from the college.

   “So that’s all panning out the way you wanted it to?” Joyce asked.

   “Yeah,” Buffy said, still glancing over the paper. “The college itself is disavowing all knowledge, now.”

   Spike snorted.

   “Yeah, I don’t believe it, either,” Buffy said.

   “The entrance to it was a bloody frat house!” Spike said.

   “One that had been reportedly haunted,” Buffy reminded him. “Probably hadn’t been used much until it was given as a cover to the military guys.”

   “You think the college did know?” Joyce asked.

   “My bet is the military paid them heavy for the use of their facilities, and to hire their people for undercover identities.”

   “Well, cat’s out of the bag, now,” Spike said. “Do you think it will do the trick?”

   “I don’t know, here,” Buffy said. “With the Master so open, the government will probably still be doing demon research. And the campus did need security, and probably will for a while yet. Just so long as Walsh is discredited, though, you know?”

   “With the public eye on the program, it probably won’t get so toxic as you told me,” Joyce said. “That chip sounds horrible,” she said sympathetically to Spike.

   “Meh,” Spike said. “Served its purpose. Glad it’s gone, though.”

   “Without Walsh, there won’t be any chips,” Buffy said, “And there won’t be any Adam. So at least that’s been nipped. In any case, it’s Faith’s problem now. Faith and Angel.”

   “Speak of the devil,” Spike said quietly, and Buffy looked up.

   “Huh?”

   “I smell smoke,” he said, and he opened the kitchen door.

   Angel came pelting in, blanket over his head, and Faith came after with a grin on her face. “You okay?” she asked him.

   “Yeah,” Angel said, stamping on his blanket. “I’m great.”

   “What’s up?”

   “We wanted to say goodbye,” Faith said. “We have to head down to LA.”

   “LA? What’s going on in LA?”

   “Jenny sent me an e-mail,” Faith said. “Something weird is happening in Santa Monica.”

   “Why didn’t she call?” Buffy asked.

   “She couldn’t,” Angel said. “Her voice doesn’t work. No one in Santa Monica can talk  _ at all _ . No one’s sure what’s going on, but....”

   “I had a weird dream last night,” Faith added. “ _ Can’t even call, can’t even cry, the Gentlemen are passing by... _ it was creepy. But I figured, calling, crying, can’t talk, might be something meant for me.”

   “Shit,” Buffy muttered, just as Spike said, “Bugger.”

   “What?”

   “We know these things,” Buffy said.

   “They’re creepy as feck,” Spike said. “And I thought that well before the soul. Better hurry, there’ll be killings by tonight.”

   “Killings? What’s happening?”

    “Well, they’re a year early, and the ones I knew were here in Sunnydale, but they’re not too hard to handle,” Buffy said. She filled Faith in on how the Gentlemen had worked in her own universe. “But Spike’s right, if you don’t get it done by tonight, people are going to start dying, and it’s pretty terrifying.”

   “Just break the box, and scream?” Faith said. “I think I can handle that.”

   “Yeah, it’ll be somewhere up high. You going down with her?” Buffy asked Angel.

   “Thought I might.”

   “I like having back-up,” Faith admitted. “Had my fill of running solo, at least for a bit.”

   Buffy nodded. She got it. The ordeal in the demon district had been hard on Faith. She had admitted to Buffy shortly after that she was having nightmares, afraid that wasn’t normal. “I’m a slayer, right? I should be able to brush this crap off, yeah?” Buffy had assured her, no. Nightmares and trauma were just as normal for a slayer as they were for any other soldier. Just like Spike, who had started getting better once he was getting regular sleep and company and had finally felt able to talk about it all. Healing wasn’t fast, but it did happen.

   “But that means we’ll be gone tonight,” Angel said. “And we wanted a chance to say goodbye.”

   They wouldn’t be seeing them again. Willow was planning on opening the portal tonight.

   “In that case, I think we should all have a real breakfast, to send you two on your way.” Joyce said. “I’ll make us some waffles. Angel? Are you okay with pig?”

   “Waffles?”

   “Blood, you wanker,” Spike said, lifting up his mug.

   “Oh, yeah, sounds perfect,” Angel said.

   They sat around the table, two slayers, two vampires, blood, food, coffee, companionship. It was as good a way to say goodbye as any Buffy had ever known.  

 

***

   “You okay?”

   Buffy looked up from the little statuette of Angel’s that she was idly touching. Spike had paused on the way up the stairs in Angel’s mansion. They’d come to say one last goodbye to Drusilla before they headed to the school and Willow’s portal. “Yeah, I’m fine, why?”

   “You’re looking a bit wistful,” Spike said. “Thoughts of what couldn’t be?”

   “It’s for both of them,” Buffy said, turning to Spike. “Both him and Faith. I want to go home, but.... Dammit, I’m gonna miss these guys! Faith and I never really were friends again after she got all murdery, and I missed her. We were really close for a while there in ‘98, and it sucked when it all went to hell.” She looked down. “I’d liked having a... sister slayer.”

   “You got a bunch of them now.”

   “She was the only one at the time,” Buffy said. “And it wasn’t just that. There was something... we clicked, you know? We were naughty, but it was nice? And it was nice having that again for a bit, here. And Angel....”

   “This one got his soul fixed,” Spike said. “Something could really have happened there. If you’d wanted.”

   “Huh? Oh, no, that wasn’t what I was thinking,” Buffy said. “It was just.... Well, do you remember what you said to us once, when you claimed Angel and I would never be friends?” Spike nodded. “Well... we weren’t. We never were. We never had been, we never would be. I’m not in love with him anymore, but I never got a chance to be his friend, either. This Angel and me... we were friends. I mean, I found out stuff about him when I was living here I never would have — did you know he likes Barry Manilow?”

   Spike laughed. “Yeah. Favorite singer.”

   Buffy threw up her hands. “I was shocked! And he was nice to me when I was worried about you, like, genuinely nice. He’s actually not the constantly brooding wildly romantic knight on a white horse, you know? He watches hockey, and he gets pissy about using coasters, and, and... he’s a guy. I think he’s more real to me than our Angel ever was.” She shook her head. “I know, you knew all this stuff.”

   “Angel was never my fairy tale,” Spike said. “You were. But everyone gets more real, close to. Even you.”

   “I know. It’s just, everything’s always so melodramatic between me and our Angel. This guy... I liked him. I think we were genuinely friends.”

   “Well. At least you got a chance for that, once,” Spike said. “Not gonna happen back home.”

   “I know it won’t. Too much ugly between us.” She went up to Spike and hugged him. “I still prefer you day to day, though. Melodrama aside.”

   Spike kissed her forehead. “You coming up to say,  _ So Long, Marianne _ ?”

   “Okay.”

   But neither of them got the chance to say So Long to Drusilla. When they made it to the garret, the door to her cell hung open.

   “Oh, bugger,” Spike said. He ran in, half hoping Angel had left Dru chained to the bed or something, but no. There was something suspended in the canopy bed, but it was only one of Drusilla’s dolls, a manacle around its throat, swinging slowly from a chain in the middle of the bed.

   “Fire’s cold,” Buffy said. “There’s sewer access downstairs. She could have been gone since this morning.”

   “She waited until Angel was out of town, so he couldn’t track her,” Spike said. “He has that sire bond thing, he could have sensed her leaving. But why didn’t she leave when he was in LA before? He was gone a week, then.”

   Buffy clapped a hand over her mouth. “Oh, shit,” she whispered.

   “What?”

   “This is my fault,” she said. “Just after Angel got back, after the Master fell, I stopped by to see her. To find out about you....”

   Spike remembered. “The new bandage on your neck.”

   “Yeah, I came alone, like an idiot, and she got me. I was out of it for a while. I had the key. I remember being shocked she didn’t kill me and escape, but....”

   “Angel was still here,” Spike said. “He would have caught her again.”

   “She must have taken the key. She must have made an impression, or got out and found a copy, or....” She stopped. “What do we do now?”

   Spike frowned. “Is it really wrong of me to say this isn’t our problem?” he asked. “Dru’s a wild card, Angel knew that. What do you say we just let this one go?”

   “And let  _ her _ go?”

   “Well, think on it, pet. With sewer access, she could have walked to a train station, stolen a van. She could be halfway across the state by now. There were probably hundreds of vampires who escaped when the Master fell. Is it so wrong that Dru be one of them?”

   “Well, I let Harmony off with just a warning,” Buffy said. “But Dru’s a little more... killy.”

   “And we haven’t tried hunting her down in our world, either, have we?” Spike asked.

   “You think we should let her go?”

   “I think we haven’t much choice.”

   “Do we warn Angel?”

   “I say we just walk away for once. Not our universe, not our problem.”

   Buffy frowned. “I feel guilty. People could die.”

   “Yeah, well... she let you live, at least. She didn’t have to. And if it hadn’t been for her....”

   “What?”

   “I wouldn’t have taken the cookies. Or figured out how to save Amanda.”

   “I guess you’re right,” Buffy said. “We both owe her one. And we have a portal to catch.”

   They left the mansion and headed on toward the school in Spike’s commandeered vampire van. They weren’t entirely sure what they expected when they got to the library — chanting and candles had been on the list, but the rest was up in the air — but what greeted them was a surprise.

   “Surprise!” Willow and Xander and Cordelia all shouted, throwing confetti at them.

   “What’s this?” Buffy asked, grinning.

   “Your going away party!” Willow said. “We have cake, and soda, and ice cream, and blood sausage. I don’t actually know if you eat blood sausage,” Willow said to Spike. “But I don’t actually know where to buy blood, and Angel was busy. Faith said you said goodbye this morning, though.”

   “Yeah,” Buffy said. “It was nice.”

   “Come on! Have some cake!”

   Willow had had the cake decorated with a swirly portal thing, and the words  _ Bon Voyage!  _ scrawled on the bottom. There was music and very awkward dancing. Spike almost recognized the CD as the Dingoes, but the guitar player was sloppy.

   It was a nice little party. Giles and Joyce and Tara were there, as was Clem, who waved when he saw Spike. “Hey, man, thanks for the line on that crypt,” he said. “Sort of miss my apartment, but at least the place has electricity, and plenty of space. Pretty choice, really. And demons can’t be choosers these days.”

   “You can steal cable from the big house on the corner,” Spike said. “The wires go right through the tunnels, it’s pretty easy to splice in.”

   “Yeah? Thanks for the tip.”

   Joyce pulled Spike aside. “I wanted to talk to you, just for a moment,” she said. Her face was very earnest. “I understand that Buffy’s mother in your world is... well, she’s gone.”

   “Yeah,” he said.

   “You knew her?”

   “Yeah, she was a great lady.”

   “Did she approve of you and Buffy?”

   Spike shrugged. “I was pretty evil in those days,” he said. “But she and I mostly got on. I was sad she didn’t make it.”

   “Well,” she said. “I wanted to say that when I heard Buffy — this Buffy — was dating a vampire I wasn’t at all sure that was the best choice for her. She’s young, she’s human, she deserves a chance at a full life.” She shook her head. “Peace, children, the chance to grow old beside your husband. Those are all things she can’t have with a vampire.”

   Spike settled a grim look onto his face. Angel had said this, once, when he was drunk back at Wolfram and Hart, that Joyce had been the one to point out the certain evils of dating a vampire for a young girl. It was what had convinced him he needed to let Buffy go. The lady did have a point, and he wasn’t going to fight her on it, but he really didn’t plan on listening to any advice about leaving Buffy. Not after everything. He’d be polite, he supposed. Say he’d think about it or something. Still, it hurt. He’d thought he and this Joyce were getting on, too. He’d been living in her house for the last week and a half, laughing over hot-chocolate, chatting about the gallery, talking about vampire slaying. It had been nice. Shame it had to end this way.

   “And I wanted to say, I’m glad you allayed my doubts.”

   Spike cocked his head at her, surprised at the turn this had taken.

   “Buffy’s more than just a girl,” Joyce said. “And my Buffy would have been, too. She needs someone strong enough to be her true partner, and you know what? You are that. I’m glad to know that if Buffy — your Buffy — can’t have her mother watching over her, she has someone like you at her back. And it’s nice to think that if Buffy — my Buffy — had lived, she would have made as good a choice as she did with you.”

   Spike broke out into a shy smile. “Ta,” he said, too embarrassed to say anything more. “Ta very much.”

   “Well. I just wanted to say that before you left,” Joyce said. “Thank you, Spike. Thank you for taking care of my other daughter. It means a lot.”

   “Thanks for being her other mum,” he said. “She deserved a second chance, there.”

   He and Joyce returned, slightly awkwardly to the party, and Spike sidled up to Buffy, who was talking to Cordelia. “Yeah, she’s still around. If she did what my Harmony did, she’ll go to LA and get some kind of job there. You know, she really hasn’t changed all that much. So long as you remember you can’t trust her an inch, you could probably still be friends. Sort of.”

   “Still Harmony, only now she’s  _ literally _ a blood-sucking, back-stabbing, demoness? Huh.” Cordelia looked thoughtful. “Yeah. I could totally buy that.”

   “Well, I gave her a bit of a message not to kill. Hope she takes it to heart.” Buffy patted herself over her own heart, and turned to Spike. “Hey. Pretty good party.”

   “Yeah, I’m enjoying it,” Spike said. “Though I think Rupert here is about to go crazy with the music.”

   “Bay City Rollers, now that’s music.” Buffy chuckled.

   And then froze. So did everyone else at the little party. Spike turned to see what they were looking at, and suddenly stood up straighter. It was Wesley, and gripping his hand with her tiny one, Amanda.

   Her bruises had mostly healed. There was still a slight discoloration on the side of her face, and the scars on her neck were still lurid red, since she didn’t have any kind of actual slayer healing. She looked good, actually. Spike hadn’t seen her look this good even when he’d first seen her in that sewer. But her eyes were still hunted, and it felt like a knife in the gut when she glanced at him, and then looked away.

   “I didn’t realize this was an actual party,” Wesley said. “Are we invited?”

   “Of course you are!” Joyce said, coming forward to welcome them, smiling in particular at Amanda. “Please. Would you like some cake?”

   The party tried to pick up again, but it was more subdued. Xander and Cordy didn’t seem to feel it appropriate to flirt or dance dirty around an eleven year old. Amanda fled to Clem’s side, and the two started talking — it became clear they hadn’t seen each other since the final battle.

   Spike sort of skulked to the opposite side of the party, so his filthy presence wouldn’t traumatize the chit. He glanced over the books in the book case. Fairy tales. Giles had a large collection of the occult.... He wondered idly where the poetry section was. Wesley and Giles started talking Watcher stuffs — something about potentials and that website. Spike smiled privately. Brilliant idea of Buffy’s, that.

   “Your name is Spike, right?” said a tiny voice.

   Spike turned. Amanda had left Clem’s side and crossed the party, all the way to this other side of the library. To him. “Yeah.”

   She stared at him for a long, long time, as if trying to memorize his face. “You look different without fangs.”

   Most of that terrible night, and most of that final battle, had been with him all fanged up. It probably haunted her nightmares, his demon face. He knew her face had haunted his. He was so relieved to see her hale and whole what he really wanted to do was scoop her up in his arms and toss her happily and triumphantly into the air, shouting  _ we survived! _ And he also knew she hated him. There were no magical cookies that could take her back to her innocence, and there was no bringing her parents back. And he was part of all that. He had to accept it. 

   He didn’t know what to say.

   “You really hurt me, you know,” she said.

   “Yeah.” 

   “Are you sorry?”

   He looked down. The truth was, he wasn’t. Yes, he was sorry he had to hurt her, but no. He was so, so,  _ so _ glad he had saved her, no matter what it had taken. “Wasn’t fun,” he finally said.

   She stared at him for a moment more, and then nodded. “Wesley says vampires have really good hearing,” she said. “Which means you couldn’t have whispered that you were trying to save me or anything.”

   He shook his head. “Nope.”

   “I didn’t know what Run, Rabbit, Run, meant,” she said. “I’d never heard the song.”

   “Neither had the Master, I figured,” Spike said.

   “Wesley told me about it,” she said. “In the hospital. He said it’s a children’s song in England, that it’s real. It’s not a joke. Don’t give the farmer his fun, he’ll get by without rabbit pie. That it was really popular when they were fighting the Nazi’s.”

   Spike just stared at her.

   She seemed to be having trouble. Her eyes were shining a bit. “You scare me,” she said. “Clem doesn’t, but you do. And I know Clem didn’t do anything that great, really, apart from, you know, not really wanting to hurt us. And I know... I know what you did. And I know you could have been killed for it, just like me, and....” The tears had spilled out. “Wes says you’re leaving tonight, and I wanted... to see you before you went.”

   Spike nodded.

   “I know you saved my life,” she said. “Twice. And I know it was hard to do. And....” She moved as if someone had cut her strings or something, and she fell forward and wrapped her arms around him. “Thanks,” she said, her voice thick.

   Then she ran like a rabbit and retreated back to Wesley, who made her sit down and pulled out a handkerchief before putting his arm gingerly over her shoulder.

   Spike had to turn away, because he’d be damned if he’d let any one of these bastards see his tears. He brushed them out of his eyes, and then felt a warm hand touch his shoulder. “Hey,” Buffy said. “Can I have this dance?”

   He chuckled at himself, and she gently touched the corner of his eye, before caressing his cheek with the back of her finger. She smiled up at him. 

   Spike and Buffy danced. Tara and Willow laughed. Xander sat on the library steps with his arms around Cordelia, her leaning back against his chest. Giles bowed to Joyce and asked her to join him in some abysmal version of a waltz. Clem leaned against the table and chatted with Wesley and Amanda. It was a damn good party.

   And eventually it came to an end.

   Willow rolled out a circular rug on which she had painstakingly charted an intricate spell circle. “Yeah, I know,” she said at Spike’s look. “The blood’s mine. This is going to put me out of commission for like a week. It’s either that or call on dark forces or pull up an external sacrifice. This is gonna suck, but it’s better for karma and stuff.”

   “You’re sure this will send us to the right universe?” Buffy asked.

   “It’s the one tuned to your signature,” Willow said. “If it’s not your universe, then you weren’t born there, either.”

   Buffy chuckled. “I guess that’ll have to do.”

   “What’s it matter, pet?” Spike asked. “Wherever we end up, I’ll have your back. We’ll be together.”

   “Oh, yeah, you should totally hold hands,” Willow said. “Or you might end up like miles apart from each other. I can’t believe I forgot that bit.” She looked nervously at Tara.

   “You’d have remembered before you finished closing the spell,” Tara said. “Confidence, not hubris.”

   “Right,” Willow said. She took a deep breath. “Everyone ready? Last goodbyes!”

   Buffy hugged Joyce tight, then Giles. Then most of the others in quick succession before going back to Joyce. Spike nodded his regards to Tara, and Wes. He shook Joyce’s hand. Then he used the opportunity to gently kiss Amanda on the forehead. This time, she didn’t pull away with a horrified cringe. “Stay safe, Rabbit,” he whispered. 

   The slayer and the vampire stepped into the carefully charted circle and firmly held both hands as they looked at each other. Willow stood at the edge of the circle, with Tara and Giles each on either hand, lending a channel for her power. Willow didn’t bother with a chant or Latin or incantations. Most of that was already sketched intricately out on the carpet anyway. The spell was really ninety-eight percent finished before the party had even started.

   She focused her magics down to the spell on the floor, closed the final loop that completed the chart, and would allow the spell to link through her blood to her power, sending the occupants of the circle to the right dimension.

   The portal opened in the floor, and the two figures fell out of the world and, presumably, into their own. Then it snapped closed, leaving the spell rug blank.

   Willow went down to her knees, and then down to the floor, because really, what was with this standing stuff, and bodies, so mundane, really didn’t need such things, just get in the way. “Did it work?” she murmured. 

   “I think so,” Tara said, down on her knees beside her.

   “I didn’t screw up?” She felt delirious.

   “No, honey. It seems to have worked just fine.”

   “Is she okay?” Xander asked. “She didn’t react like this when she brought them here.”

   “But the floor suffered,” Giles said. “And probably the fabric of the world.”

   “This time the sacrifice in energy came from Willow herself,” Tara explained. “It’s better, though... it can be dangerous.” She hoisted Willow onto her lap and let her lean against her shoulder. “We’ll take care of her.”

   “I had to put it right,” Willow murmured, still woozy. “I had to fix my mistake.”

   “Well,” Giles said. “For my part, I thank you for it. I think bringing those two was the best mistake I’ve ever seen.” He put his arm around his lover, and looked around at all the people who were safe and alive and had a future ahead of them, all because of this. It was a marvelous thing to behold. “We’d have had a hard job sorting this world out, otherwise.”

 


End file.
